Ed's Review Dot Com

Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, M. Emmet Walsh, Elizabeth Franz, Erik Per Sullivan, Cheech Marin, Jake Busey, Austin Pendleton, Tom Poston, Julie Gonzalo, Rene Lavan, Caroline Rhea, Felicity Huffman

Luther Krank (Tim Allen) is sick of the commercialism of Christmas. Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) his wife decide with Luther to just skip the holidays. No tree, no ornaments, and most of all, no rooftop light up Frosty. They’re even going to cancel their annual neighborhood Christmas Eve Party. Their daughter is away, and they have a chance to just skip it, and head out on Christmas Day for a cruise. But the neighbors are worried about their lack of Christmas spirit and try to force them to shape up and put up the Frosty! But when their daughter decides she’s coming home and bringing her brand new fiance to meet the family and celebrate the holidays, they are forced to somehow put together a Christmas with almost no time, and the stores are empty. Fortunately, the neighbors get into the mood and try to help put together a last minute Christmas for Blair (Julie Gonzalo).

Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jessica Biel, Adam LaVorgna, Gary Cole, Eve Gordon, Lauren Maltby, Andrew Lauer, Sean O’Bryan, Lesley Boone

Jake (Johathan Taylor Thomas) is attending college in California with his girlfriend Allie (Jessica Biel). Jake has plans to change the plane ticket his father sent him for 2 tickets to Cabo San Lucas for Christmas. But Dad has other plans and wants him home. Allie doesn’t want to go either. Dad makes Jake a deal that he can’t refuse. If he is home by the time the family sits down to dinner on Christmas Eve at 6PM, he gets a Porsche. But Jake is a bit of a wise guy, and some other kids dump him off in the desert out in the middle of nowhere dressed as Santa. Jake has to use everything in his power to try to get home or lose the Porsche. That will not be easy, as everything that can go wrong does. Jake does have to grow up a lot on this journey.

Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, Kenneth More, Paddy Stone, Michael Medwin, Mary Peach, David Collings, Richard Beaumont

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserable old miser who hates Christmas. He is only concerned with money and has no heart when it comes to his business dealings. His deceased partner Jacob Marley comes to visit him on Christmas Eve and promises three ghosts will visit to save his soul. Scrooge fights his way through the three ghostly visits and sees a new side of human kindness and a Merry Christmas. There have been many versions of A Christmas Carol, but this was the first to do a large scale musical version of the film.

Albert Finney does a wonderful job as Scrooge. He’s young enough to play the young Scrooge well, but through the magic of make-up can turn into old Scrooge just admirably. So with all the versions of A Christmas Carol to choose from, why this one? Well, I thought hard about that, and certainly the musical does make it very different than most. There are a few things that are changed from the story, mostly things that did not need to be changed, but I guess that is poetic license. (For example, Scrooge’s girlfriend Belle was NOT Fezziwig’s daughter), but for the most part, it is pretty faithful to Dicken’s words. Most of the songs are not real classics. It’s odd that the most memorable song of the film is the “Thank You Very Much” song sung to the recently departed Ebenezer Scrooge from those who owed him money. 🙂

This is a very worthy version of arguably the best Christmas story ever written. Certainly my collection of “Christmas Carol” was not complete until I saw this one. I enjoyed it very much, and felt the music added a lot to the story. It was not silly or light-hearted, it was very faithful to the story. All in all, it’s another Christmas classic, and very well done, for sure!