Reviews

For reasons I cannot fathom, the 1970 musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol ("Scrooge") has quite a lot of fans. I'm assuming that nostalgia and Christmas does a lot of heavy lifting on that front. I came across it a little later in life, and with quite a few other adaptations of the novella under my belt. I found its deviations from the source material jarring, the songs hopelessly simplistic and the central performance (by a way too young Albert Finney) distinctly off.

I was about 40 minutes into this rather drab Netflix movie, when the insipid song "I Like Life" started and I realised that it was, curiously, a remake of the 1970 film. Yes, we've got to the level of laziness where studios are doing remakes of adaptations of novels. I'm a bit baffled by the decision as I don't think there's anything remarkable about the Finney film that warranted this. Even the best song ("Thank You Very Much") recycled here, is a poor relation to "Consider Yourself" from fellow Dickens musical, Oliver!.

Of course, the key difference this time around is that this is animated. Aside from that, it's pretty comparable to the 1970 film. There's the same disinterest in using Dickens' dialogue, and superfluous additions (Scrooge's childhood in this , seems to be based on Dickens' rather than the pages of his novella).

I guess some of the directing choices have a nice bit of flair to them, although I found the character designs to be incredibly bland. The narrative failed to hold my interest beyond the novelty of spotting celebrity voices.

Because this is geared towards a kiddy audience, we have the addition of an dog called Prudence. Quite bafflingly, despite being a miserable old miser, Scrooge is quite the dog fan. It brings to mind the equally dumb decision made in the 2001 adaptation ("Christmas Carol: The Movie") to have Scrooge palling up with some mice to show his softer side, pre-haunting. I guess the presence of these sort of character takes the edge of the more horrific aspects of the tale, but it just makes you realise how well-judged the muppet version is. And frankly, with that around, adaptations like this are hopelessly redundant.

The setup for this movie is great. Due to the extreme rules governing a dystopian future's overpopulation, seven twin sisters (all Noomi Rapace)are forced to assume a single personality; Karen Settman. Each of the sisters is named after the day of the week when they will face the world and take on the Karen persona. So Sunday is full of faith, Monday gets things done, Saturday is up for a good time and, well, the rest of them are not so obviously defined or developed in the limited screentime afforded them. Were this a novel, I'd imagine that the characters and their distinctive personalities would be emphasised and explained. As a movie, we're reliant on Rapace's attempts to distinguish the characters. This never really works due to the way it's essentially splitting a protagonist into 7 pieces and using wardrobe and make-up to fill in the gaps. My patience with the film lasted until around the 30th minute which was when the story ceased pretending to be intelligent. The interesting storyline of 7 sisters sharing a role is jettisoned when the charade is discovered, and the movie promptly changes direction into an action movie, with a succession of expendable heroes and a strange preoccupation with gore. I love a good action movie, but this is far from one. I quickly stopped caring for any of the characters and wish it had chosen to be intelligent sci-fi rather than redundant, low budget action.

Peruse the reviews of any adaptation of "A Christmas Carol", and you'll probably find mention of Alastair Sim and this 1951 version. Why? Because it's generally believed to be the best.

Sim is great, no doubt. So great, in fact that he reprised it 20 years later for an animated version. He's this film's greatest asset and the reason I think it is so fondly remembered. As adaptations of the classic go, I think it's up there, but it's also not without flaws and I'd argue that these are mostly forgotten due to the performance of its leading man.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the pace of the film. There's a largely extended "Christmas Past" sequence which adds quite a lot of off-text detail. Some of this is almost welcome; the makers explain Scrooge's estrangement from his father by explaining that his mother died giving birth to him. This is totally off-book, but worked so well that the makers of the 1984 version recycled it.

However, elsewhere there are extended sequences with Scrooge being lured away from Fezziwig by a shady character called Jorkin (invented for the film). These scenes seem totally superfluous and, to be frank, drag. The effect of this is that the "Christmas Present" sequence is slimmed down to compensate.

We get the traditional visit to see the Cratchetts (although I'm afraid Tiny Tim seems neither lame no particularly tiny) but there's no ghostly visit to see nephew Fred here.

For reasons I can't quite fathom; we see Scrooge's lost love Alice (Belle in the book) in the Christmas Present sequences helping the poor and needy. The intention seems to be that she never moved on from Scrooge and dedicated her life to charity instead (again, off-book). Whether the film is suggesting that Scrooge will reconcile with her is never implicitly stated, as she doesn't feature in the finale.

A further issue is that Scrooge is rarely on-screen at the same time as the visions of the past, present and yet-to-come. The scenes play, almost as vignettes. This means that we seldom see Scrooge reacting in real-time, and thus we miss a gradual transformation in his demeanour.

Fortunately, Dickens' wonderful dialogue is retained throughout the and, when Scrooge awakens, reformed at the finale; we believe it. I'm not sure the film needs the extended comedy scene with Housekeeper Mrs Dilber but, by this point, the film should have won you over.

Not quite as good as its leading man, the film remains unmissable for lovers of Dickens' classic novella.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the countless adaptations of A Christmas Carol, it's that the makers should stick to the text as closely as possible. Dickens barely wasted a word in his novella; it being a perfectly judged, perfectly paced bit of fiction.

This adaptation takes a few wrong turns. It takes far too long before we get to the actual haunting, with the first 30 minutes being positively meandering. There's also a perfunctory sequence, featuring none of the main characters, where the King is celebrated. Maybe this kind of thing pleased the masses back in the thirties, but it does make the opening act a bit of a slog.

One would hope that things would get back on track when Jacob Marley appears. Unfortunately, Jacob Marley doesn't appear at all; he's a rather unimpressive voice-over. It's an odd choice; as if the makers aren't confident enough to give us a character design that will work for us.

Unfortunately, the sequence following this isn't much better. The visit from The Ghost of Christmas Past is done and dusted in less than 5 minutes (I'm not exaggerating). There's nothing of Scrooge of a boy, no mention of Fezziwig and we only really see the break-up of his relationship with Belle (and nothing of the good times Scrooge shared with her). This is a major misstep; as it fails to adequately give us Scrooge's backstory. Considering what *is* included in this adaptation, it's baffling that such a key segment was skipped over. I'm wondering if it was abridged so that they'd be no need for other, younger actors to play Scrooge, but that seems like an unnecessary compromise.

The Present and Yet To Come sequences fare better, and the conclusion to the story is really rather good as adaptations of the novella go. However, the damage has already been done.

It's a big shame as the cast are fine. Seymour Hicks may be a touch too shabby for my tastes as Old Scrooge, but he's able to give us a decent contrast in his performance (even if his redemption is far too quick, and seems almost complete after a quick glimpse at his past).

In summary, this is probably on an even footing with the Reginald Owen offering from just three years later (1938). Both have as many flaws as aspects to recommend, but both are worth a watch to aficionados of the classic story.

There seems to be a lot of people struggling over 'the point' of this movie. Is it a spoof or is it just a regular cruddy Lifetime movie?

With a plot that is so tiresome that I'm not going to bother detailing it, I say it's undoubtedly the latter. This is no spoof and Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell are merely playing a standard Lifetime script totally straight. They're not winking at the audience and I'd be very surprised if this was written specifically for them. I imagine it was an off-the-peg script that was lying around in the Lifetime offices.

And *that* is the joke. That's why Wiig and Ferrell were keen on doing this. Everyone else involved was just doing their regular job, safe in the knowledge that the film would be seen by a far wider audience than their usual output because of the curiosity aspect. The currently awful rating on IMDb will be of no surprise to either star and I doubt either of them will be losing any sleep as it drops even further.

So... the point? To get lots of viewers. To give Wiig and Ferrell a bit of fun. To get people talking.

And they succeeded.

But should you watch this movie? No, because the joke isn't for anyone's amusement other than the two stars - and a joke that has to be explained is really no use to anyone.

This is a slightly dull movie that happens to star two A-list performers - and that's hardly unique.

For the most part, The Call is a nicely efficient and relatively effective thriller. Unfortunately, it all unravels in a final third which belongs in some other movie.

Halle Berry is Jordan, a 911 Operator. We're introduced to her during a sequence which involves several emergency calls over one night. These early scenes are particularly effective as the call-centre environment and the operator routines are showcased.

One particular emergency call leads to a bad experience for Jordan and, as per Screen-writing 101, it is this backstory that Jordan will need to confront and overcome over the course of the movie. Fast-forward a few months and the opportunity presents itself: a teenage girl (Abigail Breslin) has been kidnapped and thrown into the trunk of a car.

If you can overlook the fact that the kidnapper has decided to leave his captive with a fully-functioning cell-phone, you're well on your way to enjoying the next 60 minutes of frantic conversation between Berry and Breslin.

Unfortunately, I can make no guarantee that you'll enjoy the final half hour where the film seems to tire of its own conventions and ditches the call-centre angle completely.

No more phones, no more frantic conversations, no more tight- plotting. Instead we veer sharply into horror territory and the well-worn routines of a Silence of the Lambs rehash.

Just to round things off and make you forget about the earlier subtle moments, the climax is so overblown and illogical that it could make you feel foolish for ever being intrigued as to how this story would end.

As a whole, The Call is quite a lot of fun. It's just a shame that the writers didn't have the courage to see out its initial format to the end.

Firstly, let me declare an interest: I've been following Rolfe and The Angry Video Game Nerd since about 2007. I've bought his DVDs (mainly to contribute to his finances - since 90% of the content is available free online) and I regularly visit his website, Cinemassacre. His short videos are always a joy. They're informative and humorous, poking fun at the weird curiosities of video-games, board games, movies, TV shows and books.

However, when I heard about an AVGN movie, I was a little puzzled. How could that ever work?

The main problem is that The Nerd isn't really a true "character" as such, he's merely an exaggeration of James Rolfe's personality. Sure, the white shirt is a costume and the love of Rolling Rock is a vague attempt at character detail, but his main characteristic; the anger for awful games - well, that normally comes from embellished truth. This is why the most successful AVGN videos focus on the games that Rolfe has a true history with. Exposing the absurdities of 2003's "Big Rigs Over the Road Racing" (the subject matter of a recent episode) is a lot of fun, but it pales in comparison to The Nerd spitting bile at "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"; a game which Rolfe hated as a child of the eighties and detests even more, decades later.

Nevertheless, The Nerd had built up a loyal army of fan and Rolfe had a guaranteed audience for a movie; irrespective of whether the format truly lent itself to one.

So, with format tinkering needed, where to go for the movie? The obvious answer would have been a small-scale character-based comedy. Explore and expand The Nerd; turn him into an actual character and, as a result,illustrate why he's deserving of a self-titled movie.

Unfortunately (and I take no pleasure in that term), Rolfe has always had desires to dream a little "bigger". Numerous episodes of AVGN and Board James have taken pretty radical deviations after the "reviews" have concluded. Viewers have been treated to bizarre story-lines with budget-stretching special effects, miniatures and fight-sequences. These have, for the most part, been fun - even if they weren't really the reason why Rolfe had been embraced so enthusiastically by the web community.

It are these episodes from which AVGN - THE MOVIE, takes its cues. Rolfe and co-director/co-writer Kevin Finn have delivered an unashamedly hokey B-Movie with an outlandish, wacky plot. There's no deep delving into the Nerd's character and the only "development" he goes through is overcoming a reluctance to do something incredibly minor. And if you're expecting more depth to Rolfe's performance, then you will be disappointed. I lost track of the number of times his reaction to something was simply a lip-pursing frown and a shake of the head.

There's also not a huge amount of comedy here. There are comic set-pieces, sure - but the intention seems to be that you will laugh at the sheer nonsense of scenes, rather than specifically funny dialogue. The closest I got to laughing was a bemused smile towards a couple of moments. And that's the biggest shame; I'd overlook the fact that this is a misguided format for AVGN : The Movie...if the resulting product had generated some decent laughs.

The plot is that a Games Company have developed a sequel to the infamous ET (or "Eee Tee" as it is here) and want the Nerd to review it, thus publicising it for them. This would have been the perfect springboard for a "Wayne's World" type story, with our protagonist being exploited by a large corporation. Alas, Finn and Rolfe seem to lose interest in this plot line...which is why we end up with a finale consisting of a chatty alien, a shiny spaceship and a giant existence-threatening monster.

Rolfe is accompanied by a surprisingly large cast. Most of the performers do what they can with the material but there isn't really much depth to the proceedings, so much of them are essentially cardboard cutouts. "Nerdy Sidekick", "Zany alien", "War-hungry General". I get that this is kind of The Point - but there needs to be more to "spoof" than purely pointing out that you know your way around clichés and conventions.

It's a little ironic that, by attempting to make the scale of this movie bigger, they end up showing the production up as far more amateurish. It seems that Finn and Rolfe dreamed a little too big in the scripting stage and, rather than reign things in with knowledge of budgeting, they simply kept things exactly as they were as they entered production. The result of this is that we get a huge amount of green-screen, miniatures and rubber suits. Yes, there's a charm to it (and Rolfe, as a big fan of Godzilla is obviously paying tributes), but it does make this seem more like the web sketch it came from, than the "Movie" it yearns to be.

I should stress that I didn't dislike AVGN : The Movie. It's far too long (shave off 40 minutes and it would be far tighter) and I was a little distracted during the sagging second third, but it's always watchable. It's certainly more entertaining than the output of The Asylum, with which it shares a similar "look".

And yet, I feel this is a missed opportunity. It's disappointing that Rolfe and Finn were so focused on pastiching monster movies and capers, rather than creating a movie as original as the web series that inspired it.

I leave you with the fact that Kevin Smith made his debut movie Clerks for less than $30,000. James Rolfe and Kevin Finn had 10 times that amount and made Angry Video Game Nerd : The Movie.

Let's start with the positives; for the most part this is a very faithful adaptation of Dickens's story with even the oft-exercised sequences making it from novella to screen.

What of the negatives? Well, the Hollywood factor, frankly. Jim Carrey is a fairly mediocre Scrooge - succumbing to the sniveling stereotype previously performed by Albert Finney, rather than a fully-rounded characterisation. I have nothing against Carrey, with The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine being firm favourites of here - but I wish we'd got THAT Carrey here, rather than the one who gave us The Grinch.

It's actually pretty tricky to overlook Carrey too as, aside from playing the protagonist, he also grabs a ridiculously large amount of other roles. I'd suspect there was some budgetary reason to doing this, were it not for the fact that The Polar Express suffered similar overdoses of Tom Hanks.

The Polar Express, of course, was another festively themed feature from Robert Zemeckis and, while the character designs here are not nearly as distracting, this does bring back memories of that similarly underwhelming effort.

Another problem is the 3D aspect of this feature, meaning that we have to suffer rather pointless sequences that have been designed purely for a visceral thrill when wearing tinted glasses. While this don't detract from things to much, it's particularly irksome in the "Yet to Come" segment where Scrooge is shrunk to Tom Thumb proportions for precisely no reason other than to show off the three dimensions.

All in all, this isn't terrible but I find it interesting that this is hyped as Disney's Christmas Carol, when they have two further adaptation in their stable (the charming Mickey's, the outstanding Muppets') that best this in numerous ways.

Spending your time spotting actors you've seen in other stuff may hold the key to making it through this rather lifeless adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Michael Horden makes a reasonable Scrooge but the surrounding production lets him down as it's clear that this suffers from a thin budget. Using drawings rather than actual sets may have a quaint charm in children's television, but here it just draws attention to how Scrooge-like the BBC must have been when they commissioned it.

There are plenty of Christmas Carols on IMDb. This one isn't horrendous, but it's certainly forgettable.

Not being au fait with Mister Magoo before, I found the experience of watching his Christmas Carol to be a curiosity - although not a resounding success.

The framing device of this being a "play within a play" seems a little redundant - especially when one considers "Mickey's Christmas Carol". In that animated short, the audience was simply expected audiences to believe in the "Dickens' reality" without the need to be reminded of the legacy of the Disney characters. When the camera pulls back in Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol to reveal the "audience", it does distance us from the source material.

And the source material, for what it's worth, is surprisingly faithful to Dickens. Whole chunks of dialogue are lifted from the novella and it's here where the film starts to shine.

I'm less keen on the songs which aren't nearly as toe-tapping as they need to be, especially when the addition of these is at the expense of, amongst other elements, Scrooge's nephew Fred - a fairly key part of the story.

One further oddity; the ghosts appear in a different order. We get the present, the past and the yet-to-come. I can think of no logical reason to switch the present and the past and presume it may have come down to the timing of these sequences. It doesn't really effect things too negatively, but it does feel like a rather obtuse decision.

There are better animated offerings of A Christmas Carol (seek out the Oscar winnings 1971 version with Alastair Sim for one) but this is a nice, gentle, introduction to the story for youngsters.

Considering this TV Movie boasts Patrick Stewart in the lead role, I can only confess disappointment at this solid, but stolid, adaptation.

While Stewart is the main trump card, the rest of the cast are a little lacking. Richard E Grant is a severely undervalued actor, but I found his Cratchett not nearly as likable as the character should be.

It's mostly very faithful to the book. While there are strange omissions (there's no Cratchett toast to Scrooge as the "founder of the feast") as well as pointless changes (Scrooge's sister Fan...becomes Fran) and needless additions (the film begins with a scene set following Marley's death - only briefly mentioned in a preamble in the novella) but, for the most part, this is faithful to Dickens. The problem is that it leaves no lasting impression beyond that.

In terms of adaptations, it draws its closest comparison to the George C. Scott effort from 1984. That too, was very faithful to Dickens - but had a flair to it that's missing here. It seems a little churlish to review this by comparing it to other productions of the book but when it's so slavish to the text, it does invite these comparisons.

Unfortunately, this adaptation feels a bit surplus to requirements when one considers the efforts of Simm, Scott and The Muppets. If you need a quick fix of Scrooge, they would get the nod before Stewart.

Perhaps that title "The Muppet Christmas Carol" is a bit of a misnomer as this is, really, "A Christmas Carol (with Muppets)". This is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novella first, a Muppet film second. Take Michael Caine's fantastic performance as evidence of this - at no point does his Scrooge acknowledge that he's talking to a puppet. Every creature that he comes across, be they felt or flesh, are simply characters within the story. Or, how about the fact that Miss Piggy, one of the most famous of all Muppets, doesn't appear until about half-way through the film - or that she and Fozzie only appear in two or three scenes?

It's a risky but, ultimately, completely successful choice as The Muppet Christmas Carol is a wonderful film from start to finish, perfectly encapsulating the tone of the novella. The Muppet comedy is left to Gonzo (as "Charles Dickens") and Rizzo, but even they sit out the "Christmas Yet to Come" sequences in respect to the tone.

The songs are also very good, with "Mr Scrooge", "One More Sleep Till Christmas" and "It Feels Like Christmas" being the particular highlights. It would be remiss of me to not mention "When Love is Gone", the films's love-song which was cruelly cut from the cinematic release, restored for the VHS, occasionally found its way to DVD and is cut again for the Blu-ray. Yes, it's slow and may make kids restless. No, it doesn't feature any muppets. But if any film sells the torment that Scrooge feels when he thinks of his lost love Belle, it's this one. I can think of very few sanctioned cuts that damage a film so severely.

In adaptation terms, the film is also surprisingly faithful and I can think of only two missteps. The first is the absence of Christmas Past scenes showing Scrooge's unhappy relationship with his father and his sister Fan's attempts to fix this. The second is, during the Christmas Present scenes where we see nothing of Nephew Fred saying anything particularly sentimental about Ebeneezer and instead simply skip to Fred making fun of him.

But these are minor nitpicks- and cannot dent a film that has so much heart. If it's not making you laugh, it's making you cry. And when I watch this film every Christmas Eve (be that the ones in the past, the present or those yet to come), it prepares me perfectly for the festive season.

If you want a truly faithful adaptation, I recommend the 1984 TV film starring George C.Scott. If you want one of the best family movies of all time, go for this.

8/10 for the cut version, 9/10 for the version with "When Love Is Gone".

In terms of pure entertainment, the Muppets will always get my vote as the perfect Christmas Carol - faithful to the story, yet with plenty of laughs and heart.

However, if you're looking for a "straight" adaptation, this is the one I'll champion. While the, admittedly excellent, Alastair Sim version from 1951 is more celebrated, this has the slight edge in the way it does not hold back in pitching this as a proper horror story. Witness the opening sequence which departs from practically every other adaptation, by swapping a jolly Christmas tune for a sombre and haunting theme.

George C Scott's performance as Scrooge is marvelous. Too many screen Scrooges concentrate on showing him as a miserable elderly man who would not pose a threat to anyone, but Scott's Scrooge is a force to be reckoned with. You can imagine people crossing the street to avoid him, rather than taunting him with insults (or daring to throw snowballs at him, as per the 1938 Reginald Owen version). Scott's rehabilitation is also well-handled. He does not become the jolly man of Sim nor the dancing loon of Finney, but rather a deeply humbled gentleman.

I'm also a big fan of Edward Woodward as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who takes a hard-line with Scrooge not seen in other versions. The venom with which he repeats Scrooge's foolish words back at him is a particular highlight.

It's no surprise that this film is so successful when one considers that it's also arguably the most faithful to the original novella. I can think of only one amendment to Dickens's work and that's the sequence where we discover that, the reason Scrooge's father took no interest in his son, was because Mrs Scrooge died while delivering him. For this to work, Scrooge's sister Fan becomes his older sibling. It's a tiny amendment and I'm fully supportive of it. There's no real explanation in the original novella as to why Ebenezer's relationship with his father is so strained, so this fits remarkably well.

This film was actually my introduction to the story at the age of around 10. In the twenty years since, I've seen a large amount of adaptations of the immortal tale but, upon returning to this version last Christmas, I'm fully of the opinion that this is the one of which Mr Dickens would most approve.

Before watching this production of Dickens's classic story, I was of the opinion that it would not be possible to successfully condense A Christmas Carol into a runtime of less than 45 minutes. After watching this, I'm perhaps still of this opinion...yet relatively satisfied by the efforts here.

A Christmas Carol 1971 manages to cover almost every major aspect of the novella (even the oft-forgotten "Want and Ignorance" sequence) but does so in breathless fashion so there's little time for elaboration of finer details. The biggest casualty is Scrooge's sister Fan, who does not merit a mention and his unhappy childhood is merely hinted at.

The major asset is having Sim reprise his Scrooge, although I found his performance perhaps a little inferior in comparison to his live-action one from twenty years earlier. His Scrooge here is lacking a little in the sharpness and, to no great surprise, seems older and perhaps more harmless.

I would not recommend this to newcomers to the story, but for those who need a (very) quick fix of Scrooge, it doesn't really put a foot wrong. In terms of animated versions, it's far superior to either the 2001 monstrosity or the overblown 2009 Disney effort. I just wish it was maybe 15 minutes longer so it could expand on some elements.

Christmas Carol adaptations are ten-a-penny (or a "dime-a-dozen" since most are from the US) but it would be a challenge to find one as awful as this one. Only the Kelsey Grammar TV Movie is arguably worse.

In addition to the lifeless, uninteresting animation, we have a bunch of pointless additions to the story that do nothing except detract from the original ideas of the novel.

The film has a leisurely pace that will bore children (presumably the intended audience). It takes 30 minutes before the Ghost of Christmas Past turns up, the opening half-hour given to setting up characters such as Old Joe and a, frankly baffling, subplot about Scrooge's lost love Belle.

Yes, Belle (voiced by Kate Winslet) plays a much larger role in this film than other adaptation. Whereas it's assumed in other adaptations that Belle moved on from Scrooge, here she seemingly became a spinster and never really got over him; emphasised in the "What If" song, which appears, jarringly, towards the end of film.

It's a baffling decision, clearly made so as to give Scrooge a "reward" for his redemption (as if that isn't a reward in itself). It robs the story of the theme of "years wasted", to have Scrooge be given a second- chance at love with Belle.

Also strange, is how the visitation from Marley happens before Scrooge retires to his sleeping quarters. This also occurs before he's visited by the two gentlemen collecting money for the poor. This creates a odd sense that Scrooge isn't even perturbed by the visitation and is able to carry on his working day, despite having just been haunted!

However, perhaps the stupidest, most ill-judged part of this film, is when Scrooge throws a bucket of water over Tiny Tim, causing him to contract pneumonia again...leading, presumably, to his death. So in this version, Scrooge is *directly* responsible for the boy's passing. This film has the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned the mice! There's two anthropomorphic mice in this who Scrooge takes a shining too. And that's the pre-redemption Scrooge, by the way. The, supposedly, nasty man is perfectly civil to the vermin long before he's "scrooged".

Positives? Well, perhaps it's worth mentioning that Scrooge finds it incredibly difficult to change his ways on Christmas morning. It's perhaps a little jarring to see an adaptation take this route, but I guess it's realistic that, after a lifetime of miserly ways, Scrooge isn't going to turn into Santa Claus instantly (a mistake that the Albert Finney adaptation was guilty of).

But that's all I can say that is good about this. I'm at a loss as to how this insipid thing attracted so many star names to lend their vocals. While I can accept that Nicolas Cage (as Marley) will appear in anything these days, I can't really explain the presence of Callow or Winslet.

Incidentally, the film now seems to be doing the rounds with the live- action sequences removed. While these are, essentially, irrelevant to the story, the removal of them means that both the start and end of the film is amateurishly abrupt. If you really must watch this, ensure it's the "full" version.

There's plenty of adaptations of A Christmas Carol out there and it's likely that, if you're going to delve into Christmas past, you may get no further than the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim. However, this one from 13 years earlier is also worthy of a look, even if it does take a few liberties with the story.

I'm of the opinion that there's little point deviating too much from the source, as A Christmas Carol might just be the greatest spec script in English literature. Perfectly paced and with endless quotable dialogue, it really shouldn't be too hard to get a serviceable movie out of an adaptation.

Perhaps that's why my biggest problems with this version are when it deviates from the source; such as Scrooge sacking Cratchett on Christmas Eve (making Bob Cratchett's toast to him the following day utterly bizarre), or the fact that Tiny Tim seems remarkably healthy for someone who has few Christmasses in their future.

The largest oversight is the absence of Scrooge's lost-love Belle from the story, perhaps because it's the biggest indication of just why the old man is so bitter and miserly. Curiously, despite omitting this character, there's a bigger role for Fred's partner (his fiancée in this, rather than his wife). Why the film decides to focus on this couple without counter-balancing it with Scrooge's own sad love-story is a bit of a mystery.

Aside from that, it's really not too bad. It tells the story well and doesn't look nearly as old as it actually is. But in a world of countless versions of this story, it is a little forgettable - neither bad enough to stick in the mind, nor interesting enough to join the ranks of Sim, Scott and the Muppets.

Over the past few Decembers, I've been working my way through the numerous adaptations of A Christmas Carol. It's one of my favourite stories and it's always interesting to compare what various production crews have done with the novella.

Finney's version, I'd heard good things about but never seen. I'm afraid to say that I wasn't impressed when I recently gave it a go.

In one of the first scenes, we're introduced to Scrooge by means of a shot of two hands counting coins. While this is an effective way of introducing the character, my initial thought was "Those hands can't be Scrooge's - they're too youthful". Unfortunately, the hands DO belong to Scrooge. Albert Finney was in his thirties at the time of filming and far too young to be playing miserly Ebeneezer. I don't want to be too hard on Finney as I've liked a lot of what he's done recently (particularly the unappreciated Big Fish), but he's a pretty substandard Scrooge and, like Kelsey Grammar in the 2004 TV Movie, relies on little more than grimacing throughout the first half of the film.

Another problem are the songs, most of which are found wanting. Titles such as "I Like Life" and "I Hate People" should tell you all you need to know. Subtext isn't this film's forte. The one passable song is "Thank You Very Much", but this does feel like a poorer cousin to "Consider Yourself" from Oliver! (and, considering the Dickens link, that doesn't seem all that coincidental).

Subtext is also lacking in other areas; particularly in the final third. A key problem in many productions of this story, is that they totally miss the point of the "Yet to Come" segment. Too often, Scrooge is simply scared into redemption by seeing his own gravestone. This was not Dickens' intention; Scrooge is an elderly man with more Christmases in his past than his future (at least in Dickens' story) so his impending death should come as no shock whatsoever. No, his true terror from seeing his future, is the fact that people have taken no sorrow in his passing.

This version does not make this mistake...but unfortunately goes to such an extreme, that it becomes incredibly jarring. In this version, the whole of London seems to be rejoicing that Scrooge is dead. They sing, they dance, they've abundantly happy. These people are nasty and totally deserving of Scrooge's initial ignorance!

Next we get a trip to Hell; which is totally bizarre and merely detracts from the story. While I'm against censorship, I'm not too fussed that most networks decide to omit this sequence when it's broadcast.

And then there's the big finale. While most versions of A Christmas Carol (such as Arthur C Scott version) give you a humbled, repentant Scrooge; in this we have an overtly jolly Scrooge bouncing around, dressed (anachronistically) as Santa Claus.

To summarise, Scrooge does a lot of things wrong and not much right. It tries too hard to turn Dickens' immortal classic into a bombastic musical, often at the expense of subtlety. It's not as offensively awful as the aforementioned Kelsey Grammar version of 2004, but it's no masterpiece either.

If you're looking for a "lighter" Christmas Carol, I heartily endorse the Muppets. If you've looking for a adaptation that captures the tone of the novella, try Scott or Sim. This one, unfortunately, is rather surplus to requirements.

It's quite hard to review Grown-ups, because it barely qualifies as a movie. Last time I checked, a movie consisted of a plot and some characters. This, however, is a bunch of actors messing around amidst a very flimsy framing device.

They play basketball, they go to a water park, they fall over (several times). And that's it. There aren't any jokes, there's no character development and there's certainly no plot twists.

I'm baffled as to how Sandler wrote this back in the nineties and hasn't seen fit to work the script into something workable. Nope, I guess it was easier just to ring up his friends (the talentless Kevin James, Rob Schneider and David Spade, the mediocre Chris Rock, the hopelessly loyal Steve Buscemi) and suggest that they all spend a studio's budget on having some laughs. It's a pity they couldn't take the audience along for the ride.

Awful.

I can't say I had particularly high hopes for this one. With its "Straight to DVD" credentials and the fact that it was following The (awful) Butterfly Effect 2, I wondered whether it would even be watchable.

But, as a fan of time travel movies and, perhaps because I had 90 minutes to kill, I decided to give it a go.

The jist is that our hero, Sam, is working as a psychic for the police, helping them solve murders. In reality, he's not psychic at all; but a time-traveller who jumps back to observe murders from a safe distance. When the sister of an ex (and deceased) girlfriend gets in touch, he decides to jump back and discover who truly was responsible for her death.

Cue 90 minutes of Sci-Fi drama made for an undemanding audience? Yup, but it's not totally awful.

But, boy, is it flawed.

The script seems woefully underwritten with important details skipped. For example, the way the main character travels in time is, frustratingly, never elaborated on. The idea seems to be that he simply inhabits his earlier self (as in the first film), but we never see him jumping in and having to take himself where he needs to be. He always just appears slap back in the middle of the action. This creates a bit of a muddle in the logic behind what he's doing.

Likewise, we never get a real indication that the world has changed significantly after each jump back to the past. One of the strengths of the first movie was how different the realities were that the protagonist created. This was, after all, the reason it was called The Butterfly Effect. In THIS movie, the extent of his later jumps simply seems to effect which sofa he'll be sleeping on when he wakes up. No other significant changes. And I yawned at how many times he was arrested.

Another problem is the tone, which is wildly uneven. There's a sex scene in here that seems to be directed in the style of a porno. I'm no prude and I like a good sex scene, but this took me way out of the story! Ditto, for a murder scene that is so graphic it verges on torture porn. Had the rest of the film been to this degree, it would actually be forgivable; but these scenes just pop up and simply draw attention to themselves for being unlike anything else in the film.

The most frustrating thing about this movie is that, beneath its flaws, there's actually quite a good story struggling to get out. It may be all rather pedestrian (not helped by the direction), but the murder plot does make some kind of sense. OK, it's a bit daft but nothing a few re-writes couldn't have solved. Although one of those rewrites would have hopefully exercised the final scene which is simply nonsensical and awful.

Heavily flawed, then. But struggle with it and you might be able to make up a better movie in your head.

I can only surmise that the people who have given this good reviews watch TV Movies regularly and have incredibly low expectations. I do not, but came to this as fan of the story. I've seen a LOT of adaptations and I can say with certainty that this is the worst one I have ever come across.

I've got nothing against Kelsey Grammar. Though not a Frasier fan, I respect him as an actor and have enjoyed his performances in a lot of other shows and movies. But in this...oh dear. He's awful. Hopelessly miscast and hammy. His repertoire involves squinting and frowning...and that's it.

The rest of the cast fares little better, but they're far from the worst thing about this cheap production. First and foremost, this is a musical but there's not one decent song in the entire film. In fact, the songs aren't really songs at all. It's just dreary dialogue set to verse. There's no choruses, no rhymes, no real lyrics. Just meandering vocals accompanied by dancing that is totally out of place. The whole thing resembles a really bad opera. The only times the movie had my full attention was during the occasional lapses in verse when, mercifully, the script would call upon Dickens's original dialogue.

I didn't think it was possible to mess up an adaptation of Dickens's timeless story so much, but this production enlightened me. While it's a nice idea to show us exactly why Scrooge is a miser (most other adaptations simply explain why he's miserable), to explain that his father was imprisoned is off-book and totally wrong. Bizarrely, this is actually a nod to Dickens himself rather than his creation. Other adjustments (such as Scrooge's lost love Belle being called Emily, or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come being unmasked from its regular guise as a Grim-reaper style ghoul to a dancing old woman) are not quite as jarring but are still pretty pointless.

Direction is pedestrian. I understand this was originally a theatre production but some sort of effort to transform it cinematically wouldn't have gone amiss. The aforementioned dancing sequences (particularly out of place in the sombre future sequences) go on for far too long and are just totally mundane and unimpressive to an audience watching this on TV.

The whole thing is cheap, dull and unimaginative. There are countless adaptations of this story out there so newcomers should start with Sim. And when it comes to a musical adaptation, look no further than the Muppets.

I'm confused as to how Sam Raimi could take the subject of "Premonitions" and make such a ridiculously boring film. Admittably, the cast is largely good, but this is so dull it's difficult to watch. The direction is so dour, so amazingly humourless, the film becomes an unnecessary chore.

Here's a weird film. Largely unworthy of a smile throughout it's running time, it does occasionally produce some laugh-out loud moments. The impromptu dance number is a highlight as are some of the key performances (Will Ferrell, Billy Dee Williams, Tiffani Theissen) but this is all pretty forgettable stuff. Don't get me wrong : it's not a bad movie but just not all that good, either.

2/5

I'm no stranger to bad films, but Lake Placid sticks in the memory as an exceptionally awful movie. Maybe it's because quite a bit of money was spent making it...no, I take that back : it's the plot, the script, the actors, the characters. The whole package.

This is supposedly a comedy horror. Well, drag the director to an Industrial Tribunal under the Trade Descriptions Act. It's not funny, not scary - just a complete waste of time. A monster movie, about a monster that kills...three people...and then is shipped off to a zoo. That's it. Minimum incident, minimum appeal, maximum boredom.

I wasted 90 minutes of my life watching this dross. I urge you to not make the same mistake.