A Christmas Carol (1997)
Director: Stan Phillips
Starring: Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael York
Synopsis:
A miserly moneylender gets a triple taste of the Christmas spirit to get him to turn his life around.
Impressions:
Seeing that Tim Curry was playing Scrooge was enough for me to want to check this out. I did a little looking into it prior to watching and saw that there wasn't much high regard for it. It doesn't take long to see why. The animation is Saturday morning cartoon tier, but it wasn't a feature release, so the production quality is understandable. Speaking of Saturday morning cartoons, the addition of Scrooge's dog Debit isn't great, but given Curry's nasal performance makes it sound like he's constantly shouting, "Dammit!", which reminds me of a Bill Cosby skit. As for other changes, I can only assume the intention was to make things more accessible for contemporary audiences, but I can't say the material's improved for it. As a musical, most of the songs aren't great, but we do get a duet of Tim Curry and Jodi Benson, so that's neat. That's about the most complimentary thing I have to say about it. Mercifully, this is only a bit over an hour because it's not that pleasant of a viewing experience. Even if you're wanting more of a kiddie-focused take on the story, there are other much better adaptations for that. I suppose I can take a cue from the message of the story and be generous enough to say take it or leave it, but if I'm being honest with you, I'm going to advise more the latter than the former. Humbug.
50/50