As far as remakes of classics go this is certainly one of the better examples. The great strength of this film is the casting which throughout matches the excellent class of the original, and this is no mean achievement.
Occasionally the writers felt the need to deviate from the original - perhaps once or twice too often, because the original story was quite modern anyway, i.e. it did not need much updating. Some of these deviations work pretty well (the midnight wedding was a great new idea although left a bit underdeveloped), others very much less so. Using Joss Ackland as a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and Ernst Stavro Blofeld was a bit daft, but the only real disaster is the resolution of the court case, one of the highlights of the original and a MAJOR let-down in this version.
Occasionally the writers felt the need to deviate from the original - perhaps once or twice too often, because the original story was quite modern anyway, i.e. it did not need much updating. Some of these deviations work pretty well (the midnight wedding was a great new idea although left a bit underdeveloped), others very much less so. Using Joss Ackland as a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and Ernst Stavro Blofeld was a bit daft, but the only real disaster is the resolution of the court case, one of the highlights of the original and a MAJOR let-down in this version.