A Christmas Carol: Something to watch out this Season

The story that we all love to read is now on 3D animation. Walt Disney Pictures brings Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol on the big screen with Jim Carey as Ebenezer Scrooge and screenplay and directed by Robert Zemeckis.

A Christmas Carol is the story of Scrooge set in Victorian England on Christmas Eve. Scrooge is a harsh and misery old moneylender who has an underpaid assistant named Bob Cratchit who asks for a holiday break yet Scrooge declined. Scrooge once had a business partner who died 7 years ago on the eve of Christmas named Jacob Marley, where on the Christmas Eve Marley’s ghost haunts Scrooge and warns him of the possible things that may happen to him like what Marley’s enduring of being forced to spend a lifetime with chains and never find peace after death.
Marley informs Scrooge that he will be haunted by 3 spirits of Christmas; the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come where they will visit him one after another as the clock turns one. The first spirit (Past) visits Scrooge and shows what was Christmas means to him before where he is with his family and friends merry making until he ended as a greedy man choosing his money and job over his wife. The second spirit (Present) was a joyful spirit showing what is Christmas to Scrooge on present time, where he sees people including his nephew Fred cheerfully with his friends and families on a Christmas dinner and Bob’s family with Tiny Tim who is Bob’s sick son and will be dying soon, and this touches the heart of Scrooge badly. Before the 2nd ghost left Scrooge, the Ghost of the Christmas Present warns Ebenezer about the evils of Ignorance and Want, in a form of 2 children, terrified and uncivilized and doomed to grow into savage, despicable individuals. And lastly the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come came showing what will happen to Scrooge and the son of Bob. Tiny Tom dies same with Scrooge and that revelation terrified him much asking the third spirit what he can do to change his fate and the fate of Bob son, and he woke up on the floor of his bed room as a change man. The former miserable and bitter Scrooge became a happy and merry old man.

Seeing the film on a special screening at the IMAX Theater SM Mall of Asia last Saturday brings back the child in me excited on the Yuletide season and I have read and seen different version of the film shown on television. But what’s different is seeing it in full length, on 3D and a mature perspective. Disney is always been excellent on producing animation, which both children and adult appreciates the story the graphics and the music. The film may be somewhat dark and mature which the book is all about, it is worth watching with children or anyone in the family appreciating the importance of Christmas, family and friends.



A Christmas Carol again is directed and written by Robert Zemeckis with music direction of Alan Silvestri, edited by Jeremiah O'Driscoll at the ImageMovers Digital Studio and starring Jim Carey, Gary Oldman Cary Elwes Colin Firth Bob Hoskins Robin Wright Penn Daryl Sabara and Molly C. Quinn. Regular screening begins on November 25 in all theaters nationwide.