Caroling

Yesterday, worshipping at that great shrine to the gods of capitalism The Trafford Centre, we took the girls to see the latest version of A Christmas Carol. This was our third 3D movie this year - amazing when you consider we usually get to only one film in a year.

The problem any film version of the Carol presents is the great Alaister Sim - more particularly the wonderful version of the tale in which he played Scrooge. It would be truer to say, he was Scrooge. He captured the monstrous energy and fun of the wicked Scrooge and somehow made the transformation believable. Jim Carrey's cartoonish avatar is good to look at (though bearing a remarkable resemblance to old man Steptoe from Steptoe & Son) but achieved neither of those things. The usual anarchic Carrey-ish energy seems lost, everything feeling overly calculated.

I think Noi and the kids enjoyed it though. The mythic power of the original can't ever be completely lost whatever the quality of the version you're watching. And it looks beautiful, a bit like a high class pop-up book for children. Zemeckis stays reasonably true to the origiinal, except for a couple of gratuitous sort-of-chase sequences following the arrival of a nicely spooky Ghost of Christmas Future.

All in all, better than window-shopping in the endless corridors of the mall.