A Christmas Carol: The Musical (2004)

What is it with Americans, why can't they just leave things alone, A Christmas carol is set in London in the mid 19th century, but looking at the Hollywood smiles and glittering array of models on show, would make you believe you were in modern day Boston, i swear i could see a few cosmetic faced porn stars dancing around at the beginning, not only are the sets so completely fake looking, but the actors are squinting with there eyes on a hot summers winters day, and not to mention the stupid accents on show, come on where is the authenticity and sentimental value, OH YEA Americans have done it again, if its ugly, lets look good doing it.

Fmovies: I was pleasantly surprised by this.

I was expecting a lame remake of "Christmas Carol" (the George C. Scott version is the definitive one IMNSHO) and after the disastrous Albert Finney version, another musical version was the last thing I wanted.

But the music is good and the actors can actually sing. And Jane Krakowski absolutely steals the show as the ghost of Christmas Past. What an incredibly talented, beautiful young woman she is! I plan to watch this from now on at Christmas time. It will most assuredly help heal the annual trauma of having Christmas music rammed down our throats from Labor Day onward.

I was unaware that this was adapted from an actual stage musical. When I first heard that it would be a musical I thought it would be an adaptation of the 1970 Leslie Bricusse version, which was originally a film and was made into a stage musical that is still done today. Anyway, this score was new to me, and the fact that it had to be condensed to fit into a time frame of well under 2 hours is a bit obvious in the very first set piece where they zip through several different scenes, all of which have been moved from their original settings in the story to take place in one production number at the London Stock Exchange. This was certainly theatrical in style as opposed to cinematic, but it gave a very rushed and overcrowded feeling to the action as they raced through all these scenes, fairly shouting them over the music and dancing.

I like Jason Alexander – I really do – but... as Jacob Marley, ehhhh. In his ghost costume he rather distractingly reminded me of Danny DeVito as the Penguin. His ensemble number with several other ghosts was certainly funny, which of course took away from the spooky atmosphere it traditionally is supposed to have. Also distractingly, it sounded a bit like something from "Fiddler on the Roof," and I expected Marley and the other ghosts to join hands and start dancing a hora. Not what I expected, but kind of cute, I guess.

I also found it a little distracting to have Jesse L. Martin play the ghost of Christmas Present. When he approached Scrooge on the streets of 19th Century London, I couldn't help imagining Scrooge shouting "I say, constable, I'm being accosted by an African." His Christmas pantomime musical number was fun, though, and Grammar showed his mettle in physical comedy well in that scene.

Jane Krakowski as the Ghost of Christmas Past looked a bit like a pole-dancer or a high-priced hooker. That's a remarkable body – I just don't think it served the story or its atmosphere at all.

I don't agree with an earlier reviewer who thought the dancing in the "Fezziwig's Party" scene was amateurish. There were some superb dancers there. It was a bit hectic, though, and it seemed to evoke more frenzy than the joy and warmth that I think it needed.

On the whole, I did enjoy this show, though. I've always loved this story, and am willing to see any reasonable adaptation that does not try to update it (no Bill Murray, no Susan Lucci, no Henry Winkler, please). I very much liked the fact that, as a musical, it didn't stint on the music -- and very little of the dialog was spoken. If you're going to do a musical, I think you should commit to the idea, and this was composed almost all the way though. I don't think it comes up to the standard of the 1970 Albert Finney musical, which (I don't care what anybody says) I think is a superb film -- one of the last in the style of the big musicals of the 1960s. I've always found that one very moving, despite its own touches of comic shtick.

So, I don't think this production had the soul and sincerity of some earlier ones, and the casting was a bit distracting, but on the whole I still enjoyed it. I like the story so much, that they really have to do some violent harm to it to render it unpalatable for me (i.e., bring on Henry Winkler). A qualified success, in my view.

A Christmas Carol: The Musical fmovies. This umptenth version of A Christmas is watchable, but is not great. Maybe the musical numbers worked better on stage, but in this TV movie the numbers just get in the way of the telling of the story. Kelsey Grammar is hammier than Albert Finney in the 1970 musical of Scrooge. The movie also makes unnecessary changes to the story (since when did Scrooge's father go to debtor's prison?) that feel like outtakes from Oliver Twist, not A Christmas Carol. There have been worse tellings of A Christmas Carol before, such as the obnoxious Scrooged with Bill Murrary. However, I'll personally stick with the 1951 version with Alistar Sim or the 1984 George C. Scott version. If you want a musical version, go with the Muppet Christmas Carol. The story is still compelling, however, and this version is worth your time. 6/10

As I watched this movie (in its entirety) last night, I found myself screaming at the TV and actually getting up to leave the room out of sheer frustration.

The acting was almost uniformly awful; the music and lyrics sounded like advertising jingles and were totally inappropriate to the mood of the story; and the dialogue was both good and original...sadly, the original parts were not good and the good parts were not original (rimshot).

What pained me the most was to see the way the writers totally bastardized the story. One thing that irritated me right from the start was the fact that the story is not told from Scrooge's perspective. It is crucial to the story's unfolding that we hear and see ONLY what Scrooge hear and sees as he is transformed through the visits of the three spirits and Marley.

The writers apparently also decided that Scrooge needed a "better" reason to be a miser, so they decided that Scrooge's father was poor (he was not at all poor in the story) and imprisoned for debts. Scrooge grew up working in a shoe factory (instead of going to a boarding school, as in the story) and decided, like Scarlett O'Hara, that he "would never be poor again!" This completely shatters the richness of the original story, wherein Scrooge comes to love money in the absence of his father's love and attention.

A thoroughly despicable and awful movie. Some people deserve to lose their jobs over this stinker.

Zero stars out of four.

I thought this was a pretty good musical of Charles Dickens' classic. Greedy and selfish Scrooge gets visited by the ghosts of colleague Jacob Marley, Christmas Past, Present, and Future and is reformed into a more giving human being.

While a pretty nice and feel-good film, I wished Jennifer Love Hewitt would of gotten more screen time. Other than that, the story, acting, choreography and music were generally on spot. The special effects were well done. Jane Krakowski's portrayal as the Christmas Ghost of the Past was my favorite. They could have, though, used a better Bob Cratchit though, as I think he gave a weak performance.

Overall, a nice feel-good Christmas film that is perfect for the entire family.

Grade B