User Reviews

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Hi, folks! I LOVE this version of ****' "A Christmas Carol". Very dark and refreshingly REAL. Old Camden Town must've been a real crap-hole, according to Mr. **** himself. Guy Pearce is a handsomer and younger Scrooge. In this version, we learn that he actually has a reason to be so miserly and negative about life. He was molested as a little boy by the schoolmaster and his drunken father let it happen. This affected Scrooge his whole life. He never even had a young girlfriend. It's a wonder Scrooge didn't end up gay and cruising the streets of London at midnight and frequenting the dive gay bars. As a matter of fact, how do we know that Scrooge DIDN'T do that? Maybe he did, though I'm bisexual and when I'm in the gay bars, I've never seen him there. And we do know that Scrooge invited that idiot Cratchit's wife (a black British babe) to his apartment for a rendesvous. He even got her to drop her panties. Alright, Scrooge!! I would have done her then and there. Anyway, Scrooge lets her bail without doing anything. I'd give her LOTS of money to make this a regular thing. I'd treat her nice so she actually WANTS to come over so I can get in her pretty black box. You KNOW she'd accept because she needed the bread for food, buying some nice clothes, and oh, yeah!.... Tiny Tim's operations. Forgot about him. In this version, Tim looks rather wholly deformed, so he probably needs more operations, I mean, it's not just that he's a pathetic cripple. He has a mis-shapened head and a stupid look on his face. He's probably in Special Ed classes or else he's gonna be out selling pencils like the Elephant Man. Anyway, Scrooge gets visited by his old partner Jacob Marley. The 3 ghosts show up to try to teach Scrooge some manners and some good ways of living. It's a wonder that Scrooge has never been knifed in an alleyway by now. He is owed money by all the deadbeats in Camden Town, but if just one of them would get the idea to wait for Scrooge at night when he's walking home in the fog, they could club him over the head, take his wallet and office keys, and have a nice little nest-egg for themselves. Anyway, Scrooge is shown the error of his ways including how he could have a pretty good life if he just went ahead and enjoyed the schoolmaster giving him sausage every night in exchange for board, food, and maybe a career at the school. If nothing else, Scrooge could have rolled that guy on a winter night and taken his stash and hit the road. So it seems Scrooge is the smart one still. He never trusts anybody. What do you get when you trust somebody? Trouble, that's what. Scrooge is intelligent. He knows everybody is out for themselves, even that despicable 'rag-n-bones' man who's outside yelling in the street. And do you feel sorry for Boob Cratchit?! I don't. Maybe if he put a plastic bag on that thingie of his, he wouldn't have so many kids after he does his wife. Use your head, Crutchit, you dimwit!! So this is a story of truth and redemption, but only because Scrooge went overboard as a miser. But don't think he was wrong for bribing Mrs. Crutchit to come to his house and drop her soiled panties. That was the hottest scene in the flick, when Vinette Robinson's butt is naked. Yeeeaaaahhh! I like it. If I was in Scrooge's shoes, I would have made her leave ol' Crutch-face. I'm well-endowed (I'm a professional porn actor) and Vinette (Mrs. Crutch) would certainly favor me over that low-brow Boob Crutchit any day. Scrooge starts to change and attempts to make some kind of amends for his past screw-ups. It was even hard for him to give Crutchit an extra lump of coal. Well geez, Scroogie, it's minus -20 degrees outside. How about a little heat in the office so Cratchit's ink doesn't freeze? Now he has to be bothered when Boob asks if he can use YOUR ink. Wasn't the whole point to keep that fool away from you? He's a scammer anyway. With his gloves that have no finger-slots. And that shawl! What is that he's using for a shawl, a freaking strip of toilet paper? Anyway, Scrooge has the right idea. He underpays that halfwit and keeps him hungry. Scrooge wakes up back in reality and actually goes to the Crutchit's house to 'apologize;' to Mrs. C. .... really? I wouldn't apologize, though I would make an appointment with her to come back to my pad so I could do her again. To coerce her, all I'd have to do is flash some cash under her nose. She'd be happy to oblige and I'd make her my regular Saturday night thing. Everybody's happy if they got the ducats and Mrs. Boob Cratchit would be ecstatic if I paid her good for getting down on her knees for me once a week. Anyway, this is a fine and creative turn on the classic Christmas tale which -- let's face it -- can be kind of boring at times. This remains one of my favorite versions. I like the darkness of it all. It is gritty, real, and devoid of any sappiness which is so expected in all the previously filmed editions. Have a Merry Christmas, y'all, and God bless us, everybody!

A darkly magical realist retelling that isn't for kids Written by Steven Knight and directed by Nick Murphy, this latest adaptation of Charles ****' 1843 novella eschews the sweetness of previous adaptations and deconstructs the thematic foundations of the novella itself. Fans of the original have taken issue with some of the changes (such as the reformulation of Scrooge from misanthrope to villain, the depiction of child sexual abuse, and the joyless nature of the Cratchit family), and certainly, some of these complaints are justified. On the other hand, the attempt to ground the whimsical nature of the original in something more akin to psychological realism is, for the most part, very well-handled. But the last 30 seconds are VERY ill-advised. The first thing that jumped out at me was the aesthetic, particularly Si Bell's cinematography, which avoids primary colours as much as possible, instead casting the world in blacks, greys, browns, and off-whites. Interiors punctuate these shadows with the teal and orange glow of the fireplaces, and overall the show's palette is extremely muted, as it should be. In this sense, the opening scene, featuring an ominous raven and a child urinating on Marley's grave, tells us just how unique the visual template is. The most aesthetically impressive sequence comes in the last episode; as Scrooge stands in his office, he looks up and the ceiling has become a layer of ice. Then someone falls through the ice and seems to float in the air – we're actually underneath the ice layer, and the person who has fallen through is drowning. It's a haunting image. There's also a lovely shot in the second episode – as Scrooge relives a moment from his childhood, we see his father (Johnny Harris) threaten to beat him as he cowers on a bed. However, although it is the adult Scrooge we can see, the shadow he casts is that of a child. Thematically, the show covers some of the same ground as the novella. For example, Scrooge brilliantly deconstructs the concept of gift-giving and then goes on to pick apart the very notion of Christmas cheer, in a speech that represents some of Knight's tightest writing; "How many Merry Christmases are meant and how many are lies? To pretend on one day of the year that the human beast is not the human beast?" In a subsequent scene, he relives the origins of this philosophy, as his father tells him, "every man, every woman; they're all beasts who care only for themselves." Where this adaptation breaks from the novella is in the depiction of Scrooge himself. Usually, a curmudgeonly old misanthrope, here, he has been refashioned as an outright villain. A manipulative asset stripper, he is complicit in the deaths of numerous factory workers and miners, a man who goes out of his way to be nasty to people, and whose treatment of Cratchit is almost fetishistically perverse. And that isn't even to mention his abuse of the power his wealth affords him, using it to compel people to demean themselves for his curiosity. ****' Scrooge is not an irredeemable character, but the Scrooge of the show is, which necessitates that the joyful catharsis found in **** be reformulated. And the absence of such catharsis is precisely the point; this Scrooge understands that redemption won't do anything to erase his past deeds, which is a kind of psychological verisimilitude not usually found in this tale. Depicting Scrooge as worse than usual allows Knight to build organically to a more downbeat, but so too more realistic ending that's far more in tune with our own cultural milieu than the optimism found at the conclusion of **** tale. On a much more practical level, the pacing of the show is very poor. The Ghost of Christmas Present only appears to Scrooge at the top of the second hour; he then takes that entire hour and about 20 minutes of the last hour. The Ghost of Christmas Present gets about 20 minutes and the Ghost of Christmas Future no more than 10 or so. This has the effect of making the first hour seem unending and the last hour seem rushed. Another issue I have is the design of the Ghost of Christmas Future. See the awesome Death-like figure on the poster? Don't get too attached to him because he never appears in the show, not once. The Ghost of Christmas Future is a guy wearing a long black coat and a black hat, with his mouth sewn shut…and that's about it. And then there's final 30 seconds. I have no idea what they were going for with this ending, but it makes little contextual sense, it's patronising, incredibly preachy, and…just wrong, both thematically and tonally. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this adaptation, which is dark both literally and figuratively. It's an altogether more realistic version of the story, one more in tune with our cynical times, and for that, Knight should be commended. But the changes are significant, and a few don't work. In this sense, I'm honestly not surprised it got such a mixed reaction.

I must say that this adaptation of Charles ****' story that is clearly meant for mature audience is my favorite of them all. High quality production with excellent writing and acting. The dark and grey theme of the 1800's London perfectly sets the atmosphere for the story of Mr. Scrooge. I binged through all three episodes in one night, because despite knowing the story, I just couldn't stop watching it. I'm giving it a solid 8 out of 10 and I recommend it if you're looking to watch something more than just your ordinary Christmas Carol movie.

They have created a character so worthy of contempt that it's hard to imagine him ever being redeemed.

It's very well acted and the production is of a pretty good level but the huge bleak tone of this adaptation can be off putting to some.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

From misanthrope to scociopath.......this was just awful. Three hours of my life I can't get back