During the mid-1970s, Jackie Gleason revived “The Honeymooners” franchise for a series of four television specials. This 1977 production finds Ralph Kramden somehow getting himself recruited as the director of his bus company’s holiday season play, an adaptation of “A Christmas Carol.” With Ed Norton as his assistant director and their wives Alice and Trixie shanghaied into the cast, one can hear the chaos coming from a mile away.
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It’s rather disheartening how a film that is filled with such a visual epic scope can in the end feel so cold and lifeless. Even with the title now being “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” with Charles Dickens (you know, the author of the actual story?) craftily omitted from the publicity campaign. Robert Zemeckis’ insistence on delivering some of the more stone cold animated films, that continue to attempt to convince us that it’s so much more than a simple demo reel continues with “A Christmas Carol.” It’s yet another spin on Charles Dickens tales of Christmas and redemption through the lens of motion capture computer animation. And much like the method of motion capture, it tries to be about as humanistic and moving as possible, but never can capture the subtle quirks and nuances of the human face and their emotions.