Jim Carrey spreads himself thin in this faithful animated adaptation of the Dickens classic, playing not only the miserly Scrooge but also the ghosts who visit him on a cold Christmas Eve. The star does a fair English accent, but it's difficult to see why director Robert Zemeckis cast such a zany actor only to put him in a straitjacket. The tone is also rather uneven, with Zemeckis making London sparkly clean and glossing over darker moments by either submitting to comedy (Gary Oldman pulling faces as Scrooge's dead business partner) or resorting to stunts, like a horse-and-cart chase just as Scrooge must confront his own mortality. Thankfully, the motion-capture technology doesn't have the same unnatural effect it did in the director's earlier Polar Express, but it doesn't do justice to the actors, either. Basically, it's a ghost story without the soul.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.