Ebenezer Scrooge begins the Christmas holiday with his usual miserly contempt, barking at his faithful clerk and his cheery nephew. But when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come take him on an eye-opening journey revealing truths Old Scrooge is reluctant to face, he must open his heart to undo years of ill will before it's too late.

Gimmick: an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal. That is the best description of A Christmas Carol I can give as it is so gimmicky that it makes you want to tear you hair out. Not only do they have to go with the live animation style director Robert Zemeckis loves so much as if that wasn’t enough they have to throw 3D on top of it to make the movie so nauseating that you almost don’t want to watch it anymore. I for one think 3D should stay where it belongs and what it was invented for horror movies, making a animated movie 3D is the ultimate gimmick as its intended audiences children don’t realize how much of a gimmick it is. And then the whole live animation thing has never truly worked and just looks off most of the time granted this movie is leaps and bounds better than the technique used in the Polar Express but still I would rather just see the actors or see the movie fully animated.

I am not saying that the movie is terrible in all aspects as once you get past the gimmicks and get the actual movie it is just ok to mediocre at times. But more credit there has to be given to Charles Dickens who gives them a fantastic story to work with. When the filmmakers seemed to be serious about actually telling the story and not just try to wow you with look what I can do gimmicks the movie is almost enjoyable and worth seeing until it spirals once more into the abyss and you wish for them once more to get serious about actually telling the story.

For a film that is clearly geared at children in an effort to dazzle them with all the devices of the movie the film can be actually dark at times which is perplexing to me. Adding all these useless techniques to try and draw in a particular demographic and then completely ignoring them at times simply makes no sense for me. It makes sense from the story telling aspect as A Christmas Carol can be rather dark and sinister at time but then why all the gimmicks to draw in a younger crowd. Simply put just tell the story and use the fantastic source material given to you rather than throwing ten pounds of glitter on it as trying to make it all shiny and new.

Jim Carrey is the worst actor you could have found for this role. I know why they chose him as the rubber faced Carrey with his over the top antics seems like the perfect actor to pull of this kind of character but he isn’t and since you are doing the live animation you can have chosen any number of better suited actors for the role of scrooge. Carrey being chosen is to add a well known name that can help sell the movie rather than choosing an actor who would have done a better job in the role. I liked elements of the movie and liked when they seemed to want to tell the story of A Christmas Carol but mostly I felt like I was drowning in a sea of bad choices and egotism.

Grade: C