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Ho-Humbug

To paraphrase Quint from "Jaws," motion-capture animated characters tend to have "dead eyes, like a doll's eyes." At least, that's the sentiment that has haunted Robert Zemeckis since his first foray into the medium, 2004's stiff holiday entry "The Polar Express." Sure, the film featured some top-of-the-line animation, but the facial expressions of the computer-generated characters were, shall we say, limited. Mr. Zemeckis, whose last live action film was 2000's "Cast Away", seems to have spent the last several years trying to dispute that claim. His 2007 "Beowulf" adaptation was a marked improvement, but suffered from a similar weakness (as well as a clumsy script). And now Mr. Zemeckis has brought us his take on that Charles Dickens classic, "A Christmas Carol," in stunning 3D and, again, featuring motion-capture animation.

Mr. Zemeckis adapted the Dickens story for the screen and, for the most part, wisely stays faithful to the story, lifting entire passages of dialogue verbatim. Of course, I'm not sure what Dickens would have thought of certain obviously invented sequences, the most egregious of which is a protracted horse-and-buggy chase that finds Scrooge miniaturized (really). As for the story, by now you know the drill: hateful miser, visited by three ghosts, sees error to ways, changes same.

Jim Carrey joins the ranks of Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart and Bill Murray (if you count "Scrooged," which I do), donning the robe and stocking cap to play what has become the King Lear of holiday roles: Ebenezer Scrooge. Mr. Carrey turns in some impressive vocal work, adopting a classic "codger" voice, with just a hint of British inflection. Visually, Scrooge is a beautifully realized creation. Mr. Zemeckis' team has charted every wrinkle and crease of his face, right down to some strikingly realistic bony fingers. Clearly, the team spent extra time getting Scrooge's eyes right. And they do. Some of the other characters, not so much.

Mr. Zemeckis has always been a talented, if less than subtle, director. And his "Carol" is never dull. But it also never justifies its own existence. With the amount of special effects horsepower and Hollywood connections at his disposal (Robin Wright Penn and Cary Elwes together again!), why not make an amazing live-action version of the story. Or better yet, tell a different less-oft-told story entirely. The only thing I can imagine is that the animated medium gives Mr. Carrey the opportunity to play multiple roles (he lends his talents to each Ghost), and it certainly affords Mr. Zemeckis' camera the ability to dive and swoop in and around a very Dickensian mock-up of London.

This has always been the irony of the motion-capture method: if the goal is to create a lifelike human (rather than, say, Gollum or King Kong), why not just use humans? I suppose, to those that see this medium as a new generation of filmmaking, that question must sound like a bunch of, well, humbug.