The weather outside's not frightful, yet Christmas is coming to multiplexes?

Robert Zemeckis returns once more for the third of his mo-cap films, first was the rather brilliantly sweet and simple Polar Express, second was the dry but exciting Beowulf, now he's employed Jim Carrery to play about 1000 characters who all don't sound English by any means, so fit in perfectly with the shoddy accents from the people of London, specifically the children. Think Chev Chelios as a kid in Crank 2, THAT level of painful accents.

Again the film looks stunning, and Zemeckis pretty much throws virtual cameras around like they cost nothing. Probably because they cost nothing. But he clearly wants to show off the worlds that have been built for the film so much by giving us every angle in less time than we can monitor, in IMAX 3D the film will not be for those who suffer from extreme vertigo, Liza Minelli, nor anyone with severe motion sickness, you pretty much whizz around London at the start, after an opening segment.

The film kindly opens with the book being turned to the opening, and we, from there, see Jacob Marley's corpse and Scrooge with the undertakers. From there we begin the story as traditionally as possible, sneering, bah humbug, the same dialogue as it once was, rather authentic.

As we meet Marley's ghost we start to see where Zemeckis' version has it's own ideas, rather dry and traditional in Victorian London, when the spirits come in, the humour is being attempted to rise, in the case of Marley his jaw detaches and he smacks it up and down to talk for a bit. It's as funny as it sounds, maybe less so if I described it well enough. The Christmas Past spirit is a candle with a flame the face of Jim Carrey, sporting a soft Irish accent, that sometimes sounds a tad too Canadian, just before the two go oot and aboot the 'shadows of the past'.

Christmas Present is Jim Carrey as Brian Blessed, he laughs a lot, is very beardy and booming, and clearly needed the presents of someone with a voice like Blessed, as Carrey cannot sustain the bass to really excel in the vocal department here, however the final scenes are perhaps the most disturbing in a kids film this side of Jar Jar.

Christmas Future is the point I mark on the map wherein the film goes downhill. Before the spirits went into the flashback moments rather quickly, a little introduction and conversation, then BLAM, Scrooge is shown things, here Scrooge is chased down streets by the shadow spirit on a shadow horse and cart and shrunk until he fits through pipes, and for no reason smashes against 10 icicles as he falls off a roof, THEN gets to a flashback, that's 5 minutes of runtime that could have been cut and the film would feel better, especially since it's duties to be as traditional in the dialogue as possible make such an extended action sequence seem rather hysterical, like a parody in itself of an American remake.

Of course the tale of Tiny Tim is well done, if a little heavy handed at points, but Gary Oldman as the face of Tim and the face and voice of Bob Cratchit is great, he doesn't overplay, he just delivers a simple character who is always in the background until the final 15 minutes. Colin Firth, though high in the credits, has about 3 scenes, all are adequate, but there's nothing for him here. Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig underplays the Cockney, and during a dance sequence looks far too cartoony, then again he never looked all that real in Roger Rabbit either.

Whilst the detail is great on some textures and Scrooge's face, many Londoners look rather bland and quickly rendered, which is disconcerting when many kids with limited expressions play on the roads. The music is rather festive without being too overbearing.

It's a nice happy film, with some good moments and sequences, but the final act kills off some of the quality from the previous two.

7/10