The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Ghost Story Over Christmas Spirit: Zemeckis Reimagines Dickens
What happens when a legendary director, cutting-edge technology, and a comedy icon tackle one of literature's most beloved Christmas tales? The answer might surprise you—and not necessarily in the way Disney hoped.
Robert Zemeckis' motion capture adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" stands as one of the most faithful interpretations of Charles Dickens' ghost story ever put to screen, yet somehow manages to miss the heart that makes the tale endure. Jim Carrey's remarkable versatility shines as he portrays not only Ebenezer Scrooge but all three Christmas spirits, demonstrating his commitment to character work that goes far beyond his comedy roots. The star-studded supporting cast featuring Gary Oldman, Robin Wright, Bob Hoskins, and Colin Firth brings considerable talent to the production, though their performances are sometimes lost in translation through the technology.
What makes this adaptation particularly fascinating is its commitment to the darker elements of Dickens' original text. This isn't your typical sanitized holiday fare—Zemeckis leans heavily into the "ghost story" aspect of "A Christmas Carol," creating genuinely unsettling moments that might surprise viewers expecting typical Disney Christmas cheer. The film's reliance on 3D visual effects and extended sequences through Victorian London showcases technical ambition while sometimes distracting from the emotional core of Scrooge's transformation. As we debate the film's merits, the central question emerges: can technical innovation compensate for emotional distance? While the film deserves credit for its faithful adaptation and visual achievements, it ultimately struggles to capture the warmth that makes the best Christmas Carol adaptations enduring holiday traditions.
Whether you're revisiting this divisive Christmas adaptation or discovering it for the first time, join us for a thoughtful exploration of what works, what doesn't, and why some Christmas stories connect with audiences while others fall into the uncanny valley. Subscribe to Couch Critic for more deep dives into holiday classics and fresh perspectives on films that shaped our viewing experiences!
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On the couch. We're laughing, crying, feeling it all, Breaking down the big screen, the hits and the flaws. Grab your seat, press play, let's take the pic. Lights, camera action, it's the Couch Critic.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Couch Critic. I'm your host, nathan, and on today's episode I'm joined once again by my good college friend Mitch. Hey, mitch, how are you?
Speaker 3:Good, what's up everybody.
Speaker 2:So, as you can tell by the excitement in his voice, we're talking about one of his favorite Christmas classics, that is, robert Zemeckis' adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Now Katie and I have already reviewed another version of A Christmas Carol with Albert Finney, which I actually thoroughly enjoyed. I love that. It was a musical. I felt that he embodied Scrooge. Yes, his voice was a little silly at times, but it was the 70s, I believe that's when that one came out. So it was the 70s, so I forgave it for that. But this is like early 2000s, I believe, and it's when they wanted to do motion capture. You know, robert Zemeckis did Polar Express with Tom Hanks, and so it was like, hey, let's take a Christmas Carol, classic Christmas story and let's do some mocap with it, with none other than one of actually one of my favorite actors, jim Carrey, playing Scrooge and Christmas past, christmas present, christmas future, I guess. And he also played like younger versions of himself. So Jim Carrey was all over this thing and I think that was the big sell.
Speaker 3:Great, great Jim Carrey.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to go over a synopsis. We already know the story of a Christmas Carol. This movie has Jim Carrey, has Gary Oldman, has Robin Wright. It has Cary Elwes was in this I did not realize he was in this. Bob Hoskins was in this. May he rest in peace. There is a plethora of star talent in this movie, so it was a very star-studded cast.
Speaker 2:I remember being actually excited about seeing it because, again, it's Jim Carrey. I remember going to the theater to see this with my family and I was bored out of my mind. I didn't know what Disney was thinking when they made this. Now I will say this One of the highlights is that it is actually a really good adaptation of the story. I think it's probably. One of the highlights is that it is actually a really good adaptation of the story. It's it's free. I think it's probably one of the closest and it could be wrong. I think it's probably one of the closest adaptations to the actual story. So people are always making negative comments about movies that take a story that's beloved and they change things. They do things completely different. I believe that this movie actually stuck really close to the content that it was based on. So I'm going to give that right out the gate, because I know, mitch we talked about this before, before we started recording that you probably aren't going to have anything positive to say about this movie, correct?
Speaker 3:All right, I'll preamble it with this. If, when you look at it on paper, everything you mentioned, if you're selling it to somebody and you say I've got an idea, okay, yeah, the success of the Polar Express. We take Robert Zemeckis, you know legend robert zemeckis guys, we're talking forrest gump back to the future, cast away, like the list goes on and on. This guy, he's a legend, he, he has earned, he, there's respect to his name, as they say, and he says I'm coming with jim carrey, the great jim carrey, and we're going to do a Christmas Carol, disney's A Christmas Carol. That's very important here. Disney's A Christmas Carol. I'm with you, nate. I went into the theater I was like let's go, let's do this, it's going to be. I'm so excited. And one a motion capture of that time. You know we can get into the uncanny valley.
Speaker 3:It is very bad in this film and I feel like for having the title, for being Disney's A Christmas Carol, it is insanely dark and weird. Weird is the word I would use mostly for this one. Jim Carrey is great. Yes, his range, I'd say that's the positive. His range in the film is great. Okay, we have the ghost of Christmas past is a candle and it's going and the ghost of Christmas present with that really like like it's everything's like extra demented in this film and I think it. It relied a lot on 3d gags. This came out around when I popping 3d was coming back out, so it relied a lot on really intense like sequences of like going through stuff and like just the scene where he's talking to jacob marley is like five minutes longer than it needs to be. I'm with you. It's like okay, looking at my watch, like okay, what it's hard for me to find anything good about this movie and, like you said, like we were saying stars started cast it.
Speaker 2:I think I think what you're talking about when you talk about how creepy it was and how dark it was and how overly demented, like even the ghost of Christmas present, which in every movie you've seen of a Christmas Carol because there's like a plethora of them that character is always played very over the top, very joyful, very, you know, triumphant and that kind of character. So I had no issue with the way Jim Carrey played that character, but I'll go back to saying playing devil's advocate, being the positive person in this review. It's very close to the source material this story is. It's not just called A Christmas Carol, it's called A Christmas Carol A Ghost Story. So Charles Dickens meant for it to be a little bit creepy, a little bit because he wanted to get Scrooge to a point. You know Ghost of Christmas Future, kind of creepy, you know he sees himself burned alive, basically, and goes to H-E-double-Hawkins taking some versions of the movies.
Speaker 2:So, like Charles Dickens, wanted to push this character to a point where he basically gets the hell scared out of him. And there's I've done plays of this. So there's actually one of the scenes at the very end when scrooge changes his ways is actually called scrooge's conversion. So it wants to get scrooge to a point where he literally I wouldn't say get saved, but literally makes the decision to keep the spirit of christmas in his heart all the days of his life because he does not want to experience the horrific things that he saw. So I will say that again, I appreciated that they took the source material and they stuck so close to the creepiness and the ghost story side of it. I'm going to give Robert zemeckis props. I will say some of some of the motion capture was off-putting. There were some characters that I thought looked really really cool, like I thought jim carrey's scrooge looked cool. Did it look weird? Yes, because you hear jim carrey's voice, you know what he's trying to do with it, but at the same time the transformation was more clear, the way he portrayed it. And then when Robin Wright's character comes in, I believe she's Belle, she's Scrooge's love interest. There were moments I'm like that looks so realistic, it looks like Robin Wright, it didn't look like motion capture. So there were moments and there were characters that it fit. Bob Hoskins was another one. I thought his, his Fezziwig was amazing and his voice just fit the character so well.
Speaker 2:Now there are some characters where it did not fit as well, like Gary Oldman's Bob Cratchit. It is some character. His Bob Cratchit looks so weird because it's a short little man, big head, the gary oldman's face, and so that didn't fit. Colin firth when he comes in his fret at the end he's kind of his motion capture is kind of off-putting at parts. So it was a hit or miss visual wise. But let's let's talk about the story. Do you think that it still does the story justice, despite the motion capture, despite everything else? Do you think that it still does justice to a christmas carol? I'm gonna say it does, because how close would a source materialist takes?
Speaker 3:yeah, putting my you know, putting my personal preference of that aside. Yes, it does. It would be wrong to go. No, it doesn't at all. Yes, it does. Like you said, it is a ghost story and they chose to lean into that and it's that the best version, the closest version to the spirit of what it's supposed to be. Is guess which one it is?
Speaker 2:I'm assuming you're going to say Muppets.
Speaker 3:Yep, and that's, that's the crazy thing about it. And what they say is the reason why it gets that title is because because the tone is the tone is good. My Michael Caineane, his, his portrayal as scrooge is in like he played it as serious as a heart attack. He says it in all the interviews. And also gonzo's narration using dickens's words throughout the whole thing really really puts it where it needs to be, like the scene before the cratchits eat.
Speaker 3:When Gonzo reads straight from the book you know it was the most anticipated moment of all the live long year Like when you're hearing these words, it just it helps sell. Like I mean, there's a reason why it's you know it is a Christmas carol because those words and what he wrote are just absolutely incredible. And so, yes, moving that aside, I could talk about my christmas carol forever, but focusing on on this one does it, does it? Do it what it's supposed to do? Yes, it does. The, the change is there, the ending is strong. So, yes, I wouldn't say that, like I said, for my personal preference, thinking that it's a little too over the top. Putting that aside, I would say yes, it does what it's supposed to do, but I really feel like Disney has kind of tucked it under the rug. They really don't celebrate this film at all.
Speaker 2:Well, I think they show it like on the cable channels. They show this version a lot. I don't think they really show a muppet christmas carol that much on on, at least on cable networks. But going back to what you said about gonz's narration, that actually does fit with the way charles dickens would present these stories, because of a lot of people know this. But he would actually rent out a theater and he would retell the story himself and play all the characters and things like that. So that kind of I can understand why they would say Gonzo narrating it as in claiming to be Charles Dickens throughout the whole film. It kind of fits with what Charles Dickens would actually be doing. So I will give the Muppets Christmas Carol props for that. And I do think it's awesome that Michael Caine played it straight the whole time while all the zaniness was going around him, because it really fit the craziness of, because it kind of replaces the ghost story atmosphere with a Muppet atmosphere. It kind of still fits.
Speaker 2:But I will say, going back to what I said at the very beginning, when I saw this in theaters I was like this is Disney and yes, they stayed very close to the Sorcerer's Journal. Yes, it's a ghost story and, yes, they did creepy stuff with it, but they went, like you said, they went a little too far. I think there there were straight up creepy parts. Yeah, this movie. But I'm thinking people brought their kids to this movie thinking, oh, it's going to be this cartoon, it's Jim Carrey, it's going to be so funny, he did the Grinch Disney and it's the creepiest thing you could ever watch. And it and like I said before, again it stayed true to the material. I'm going to say that till I'm blue in the face because it did. But it was just not. It wasn't anything new, it wasn't anything exciting, it wasn't. It wasn't a Muppets Christmas Carol, it wasn't Albert Finney randomly starting to sing songs. And that's what made me love that version of the movie, because it was a musical, it wasn the movie because it was a musical.
Speaker 3:It wasn't anything like that. It was just a christmas.
Speaker 2:It was missing the spirit of christmas. Yeah, I think I think if they did this as a live action and I think it would have been a lot more fun and I think that, like nowadays, they could probably remake this version and do it live action and have jim carrey still play all the parts. Obviously I know a lot of people were going to poo poo this, but they could use some CGI in there Because, like you said, when he was Ghost of Chris's past and he was the candle, well, that's, that's straight from the book, like that's how it is portrayed. And, yes, the little ticking thing was a little annoying, but I got what they were doing. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a flame flickering and I got it.
Speaker 3:It didn't bother me Well, yeah, I mean it is the past. I mean, when we're thinking about it, the past is very scattered. So, yes, it does what it's supposed to do. Whether I personally like that version of it or not is irrelevant in the sense of film. If we look at film as what it is and what they're trying to portray, what the director, it's all about their vision of what they're portraying. He did it. He did what he set out to do and that's what he would tell you If he was sitting here right now. He'd say that's what he wanted to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that is our thoughts on Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol. I enjoyed it a lot more than Mitch did, obviously, so I'm going to let Mitch give his rating one out of five stars. What would you give Robert Zemeckis' Disney's A Christmas Carol One?
Speaker 3:Wow, and I'm giving the one for Jim Carrey and for what it is, but I don't think there's any rewatch value in it at all. I can't see myself looking at that caretaker at the beginning of the movie with his hand.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's like one of the worst ones of the eyes. You're like dude, just yeah. You guys can't see I'm doing the face in the Zoom. You guys can see it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, that's like an introduction of what this movie is going to be like In your face. Long and prolonged. Yeah, so that's your general rating, right? So what would be your Christmas rating? In the spirit of Christmas, how would you rate this?
Speaker 3:movie. Negative two, what like in the spirit of Christmas. How would you rate this movie?
Speaker 2:negative 2, what it's?
Speaker 3:that's a joke. That's a joke in terms of the spirit of Christmas. I'd give it a 2.5 because I still think it's missing.
Speaker 2:It's still missing yeah, I do what you're saying. It's still missing. Yeah, like I do what you're saying Like it's nothing new, it doesn't have the spirit of Christmas in it. I'm going to say being a Christmas girl.
Speaker 3:I'm going to come back to the Muppets for one. You know, when we look at because I think one of the most important characters in the Muppet version is present the ghost of Christmas present. When he's singing, it feels like Christmas. And I remember being young because it came out when we were younger I remember seeing Michael Caine when he starts like imitating him. There's this genuine moment where he's starting to, you're starting to see him change and I remember feeling that as a kid. Like he's changing, like he's he's wanting to emulate him. He's he's wanting to emulate him. He's what he's wanting to understand the spirit of christmas that he doesn't understand. And that's what the that's what robert zemenka says disney's a christmas. Carol is missing. It's missing. I. I never, I never, felt like there is a. There's that moment where it connects with us, or me personally. I'll say me, it didn't connect with me.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:I understand, and I think some of that had to do with the limitation, because motion capture is cool, right, but it does have limitations when it comes to showing true emotion. And I think that's what held this one back and I think that's why Because I think we reviewed Polar Express too, and I think that's why cause I think we reviewed a polar express too and I don't think I think we gave it high on Christmas rating, but like general, we kind of felt the same way, like motion capture is very limited when it comes to motions. So I totally get what you're saying. Like you, you don't really truly feel or see the transformation of Scrooge in this because of those limitations.
Speaker 2:So I would give I would give a Christmas Carol, disney's Christmas Carol a 3.5 for Christmas, and that's pretty low for my standard of what I'm talking about, christmas, and I think it's because of what you said. It's nothing new, it's just it's a Christmas Carol. There's nothing wrong with the story of a Christmas Carol, but it just it just wasn't something that you're like oh my gosh, I have to watch this every Christmas or Christmas will be ruined. So my Christmas rating is 3.5, and my general rating would probably be a 2.5, maybe a 3. Okay, and again, like you said, it's mostly because Jim Carrey's in it and that's about it. I think Jim Carrey did work his butt off Because if you watch the behind the scenes stuff, he's a method and he's so good at what he does and he put his heart and soul into this. I think he does that in everything he does, whether it's over top silly stupid stuff or something as serious as the Truman Show, which, by the way, is still my favorite Jim Carrey movie of all time.
Speaker 3:The Truman Show is incredible. Yeah, you're not going to get an argument for me on that one.
Speaker 2:Those are our final thoughts on Disney's A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Once a genius now I mean he's still a genius. But Once a genius, now I mean he's still a genius. But those are our thoughts there. This Cinema Saturday is my most highly anticipated movie of the summer. I'm so excited that I saw it already. I can't wait to talk about it. Superman Woo-hoo Can't wait to talk about it. And then next Tuesday is a movie I've never seen and it's probably going to probably a very kiddie movie. It's Eloise at Christmas time. Never seen it, don't know anything about it. I know it's like a based on books and other movies and stuff. So Eloise at Christmas time next Tuesday and this cinema Saturday, the one, the only Superman on the couch where every movie gets its close-up.
Speaker 1:It's not just a movie, it's a way of life. We'll watch it together, day or night, so settle in close and don't miss a flick. This is the moment for the couch critic.
