TheRetroCritic

Despite the relatively unkind feedback Robert Zemeckis received after experimenting with CG animation in The Polar Express , he persevered and, in 2009, he delivered his own version of A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey as Ebeneezer Scrooge... and the three ghosts. While the animation in Polar Express gave an unwanted creepy puppet quality to the child characters, here the visuals are much more polished and the actors' expressions are captured perfectly. It's fascinating to see Jim Carrey being turned into, not only an old man, but a younger Scrooge, a candle ghost and a big bearded spirit dude. The rest of the cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins, are also beautifully rendered into their CGI characters. There are still creepy visuals but this time it's very much on purpose as Zemeckis appears to have picked the scariest aspects of Polar Express and Beowulf in order to give every kid watching this movie nightmares throughout the holiday se

Released in 1988 and directed by Richard Donner, Scrooged was a modern retelling of Dickens' classic story  A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as a particularly grouchy TV producer who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This marked a mini-comeback for Bill Murray after The Razor's Edge failed to make a dent at the box-office and despite Scrooged not sitting well with the likes of Roger Ebert, it's enjoyed something of a cult status since its release. This was certainly not the Scrooge re-imagining anyone was expecting as it's far stranger and more mean-spirited than you'd think, which might explain some reviewers' reservations. The tone throughout yo-yos between creepy and goofy so when the inevitable uplifting climax happens, you might find yourself too weirded out to really buy it. Perhaps part of the problem is that Murray sells his character's meanness too well so his 360 switch to "happy mode" needed more work to be convincin

With all the many movie versions of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" out there, it's rather difficult to pick one to talk about but, growing up, one of the most stand-out versions for me personally had to be Mickey's Christmas Carol , a 1983 Disney short feature with, obviously, Scrooge McDuck (voiced by Alan Young) taking on the role of the iconic grump Ebeneezer Scrooge. Of course, many other classic Disney characters portray key roles from the story: Mickey is Bob Cratchit, Goofy is Jacob Marley, you've got Donald Duck as Scrooge's nephew, Daisy Duck as Scrooge's old flame (which is weird when you think about it), Minnie Mouse as Cratchit's wife, Jiminy Cricket as one of the ghosts, even Chip and Dale show up for a cameo. Pete pops up near the end as the ghost of Christmas future, mostly to terrify younger viewers. As a kid, that last part, Scrooge falling down a fiery pit inside his own grave as a hooded Pete laughs his butt off, nearl