Monday 31 December 2012

Not a Fan.

I mentioned in a Christmas Eve post the version of A Christmas Carol done using motion capture techniques. It stars Jim Carey, who plays Scrooge and all three spirits.

The Ghost of Christmas Past was interesting and even a little spooky, with its flaming and disembodied head that kept floating away from its body. Where I had a problem was with the Ghost of Christmas Present. It was the usual rotund being sitting on top of a pile of food which didn’t, by some miraculous artifice, collapse. OK, that’s in the book; but it kept laughing even when there was nothing to laugh at. It was a typical stage laugh – over the top and wholly unconvincing. This agent of regressive therapy didn’t come across as the Ghost of Christmas Present at all, but as a gauche and slightly demented chain store Santa who doesn’t know where the line lies between funny and just plain irritating; in short, the sort of person you hide from at parties

Carey can be a skilled actor when he puts his mind to it, but more often than not he takes cheap refuge in the obvious, the unsubtle, and the utterly unfunny – which was why I didn’t make it to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I suppose I should have done, just to see what Carey made of a character who has no face and doesn’t talk.

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