Bah!

All around town, I keep seeing billboards for Robert Zemeckis' latest motion-capture monstrosity A Christmas Carol. The most prevalent features Jim Carrey's Ebenezer Scrooge flying over the London rooftops with a goofy, frightened look on his face.
So much about this project bothers me. I'm a huge fan of Charles Dickens' Christmas tale; I've seen several different stage versions, as well as a number of screen adaptations (including one with Muppets). The best of the bunch are those that strive to understand the depth of Scrooge's misery. A life of misplaced priorities and lost love can destroy anybody's humanity, which makes Scrooge a somewhat tragic character. Not that he isn't responsible for his own actions, of course. We choose how we will respond to the events of our lives, and he has chosen poorly.
On that fateful Christmas Eve, Scrooge is faced with his past mistakes and regrets, exposed to the suffering of others in the present, and shown what the consequences of his actions will be in the future. A harrowing night for anybody, skinflit or not.
"A Christmas Carol" has always been a tale of redemption; the story of a man given a second chance at life. However, Zemeckis' film seems to come more from a place of cynicism than Christmas joy. Rather than try to do justice to the themes and lessons of Dickens' story, Zemeckis appears to be exploiting our knowledge of the tale, taking familiar and beloved characters, story points, and phrases and using them for his own purposes. For example, Scrooge's constant response to anything he doesn't like or understand has always been, "Bah, humbug!" This dismissive reprise is meant to denote a certain emotional stoniness inside Scrooge. In the hands of Zemeckis and Carrey, it turns into a delightful catchphrase and, even in the trailer, they treat it as a sort of moneyshot ("You know it's coming, so here it is!").
Dickens' story is sensitive and heartwarming, appealing to what is good inside all of us. The new film seems to view the fantastical element of the story as an excuse for ridiculous action set pieces, such as Scrooge being shrunk down to the size of a mouse and shooting through sewer piping as if it were a waterslide. This has so little to do with Scrooge's emotional arc (unless, of course, it is the Christmas ghosts' plan to get Scrooge to change by beating the hell out of him), that it's enough to make me wonder whether Zemeckis came up with the sequence before he ever found a project in which to put it.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the dead-eyed faces of the motion capture characters won't be distracting. Perhaps the action won't take precedence over the story. Maybe Scrooge won't be reduced to a hollow shell of what Dickens meant him to be.
The only way to find out the answers to these questions is to go see Disney's A Christmas Carol when it opens nationwide November 6! And when you do find out the answers, please let me know, because there is no way I'm seeing this movie.