A 'Fantastic' Display of Wes Anderson's Themes

by Brett Parker

For as visionary as most contemporary auteurs can be, it seems the one form of cinema they tend to avoid is animation, which can periodically prove to be the most visually arresting aspect of the medium. Perhaps this is because most serious filmmakers feel that a strong sense of humanity and drama can be skewered in translating a heartfelt story into cartoon form. That’s what makes Wes Anderson’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, so significant. While the film’s use of traditional stop-motion animation may give the film the look of cutesy children’s fare, Anderson has used this genre to deliver the very essence of his trademark themes with very little compromise. He’s not churning out a sanitized children’s tale as a fun, cinematic exercise but is using animation to unearth his usual ideals of family, melancholy, and sneaky exuberance in a newly expressive light.

In a stop-motion universe in which animals talk and exist like human suburbanites, we meet the Fantastic Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a sly and cheerful thrill-seeker who specializes in stealing chickens from dangerous human farmers. Mr. Fox lives for the thrill of the hunt and finds he’s most alive when he’s acting out elaborate chicken heists like the wild animal he is. He proudly fancies his live of cunning thievery until the fateful day when his loving wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) announces she’s pregnant and wants to start a family with him. This causes Mr. Fox to give up on his dangerous adventures and embark on a simpler life.

Years pass and Mr. Fox has uneasily settled into the role of a family man. He writes a column for a local newspaper and has moved his family into a beautiful tree that resembles a typical suburban home. Both he and Mrs. Fox are raising a strange son named Ash (Jason Schwartzman) who Mr. Fox sort of wishes were a little more like Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), his athletic nephew. While most would find this quiet, family life more than satisfying, Mr. Fox is gnawed at by his animal instincts and yearns for the excitement he once found in stealing chickens. As his eyes wander towards the chicken farms of his sinister neighbors, Bean (Michael Gambon), Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), and Bunce (Hugo Guiness), Fox can’t resist staging secret heists to steal from these evil farmers and satisfy his thieving impulses.

Behind Mrs. Fox’s back, Mr. Fox begins penetrating the carefully guarded farms of his neighboring targets, all with the assistance of the dim-witted Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky). Pretty soon, the evil farmers grow wise to Mr. Fox’s swindling and wage war on the entire Fox family. They begin an attack of terror which starts with gunfire and progresses towards scary bulldozers that threaten the Fox’s underground lifestyle. Realizing the weight of his actions, Mr. Fox must face his flaws and come up with a scheme to save himself and the rest of his furry friends from these scary humans out for animal blood.

Wes Anderson is a filmmaker known for painting his frames with landscapes of cartoon colors and offbeat mannerisms. What we remember most strongly about his films is the peculiar details he pours into creating his characters’ personal styles and colorful surroundings, usually reflecting the predominantly quirky nature of their mindset. In this sense, the relationship between stop-motion animation and Wes Anderson makes for a perfect marriage, for the attention-to-detail that undoubtedly goes into creating a stop-motion world deeply satisfies Anderson’s need to pour his own personality into every frame. Through the animation direction of Mark Gustafson, Anderson is able to employ the oldest form of stop-motion art, the kind used in the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV movie. This not only displays Anderson’s love for vintage cinematic techniques but allows him to put his offbeat touch into every minute detail within the frame. Every time we see a character or see a location, we feel like we can almost reach out and touch them. There’s a vivid texture and tangible feel to everything in the foreground, made more effective by Anderson’s whimsical touch.

Even though we’re in territory surrounded by talking animals, the characters of The Fantastic Mr. Fox share just about everything in common with Anderson’s human characters. Through Mr. Fox, we can see Anderson’s trademark archetype of the relentless yet optimistic schemer. Like Dignan plotting a heist or Steve Zissou out to kill a Jaguar Shark, Mr. Fox is driven by a tunnel-vision goal that he feels will bring personal fulfillment at long last. Mr. Fox is also an obvious soul brother of Royal Tenenbaum, a wily rogue who tries cheerfully to turn his family unit onto his hedonistic and compulsive idealism. An important Anderson theme that pulsates throughout this adaptation is that of dysfunctional family stress. Like the Tenenbaum children or the Whitman Brothers, the foundation of the Fox family is threatened by each member’s personal flaws and the reservations each member holds towards each other. Ash feels isolated by his father’s favoritism of Kristofferson over him and Mrs. Fox deeply despairs of her husbands self-absorbed impulses. Yet in the end, Anderson employs his usual ideal that faith in the family unit may provide the perfect solace from personal inadequacy and existential dread.

Perhaps the strongest Anderson trademark felt within this outing is a sense of loss and acceptance. Anderson’s characters tend to find themselves crippled by a significant personal loss and try to curb the internal damage in the best way they know how. Whether you follow Max Fischer as he struggles to regain his Rushmore lifestyle or Steve Zissou as he seeks revenge on an exotic shark, Anderson consistently paints a picture of bruised characters seeking ways to heal their wounds. What eats away at the characters in The Fantastic Mr. Fox are repressed feelings of animal instincts. Ash feels he can’t live up to them while Mr. Fox feels he needs to surrender to them. There’s a fascinating scene in which Mr. Fox tries to rally his critter pals against the evil farmers by highlighting each of their basic animal characteristics. Yet Anderson usually shows his characters finding acceptance in their flawed states. They may not reach their original goals, but they grow a deeper appreciation for what they do have. There’s a beautiful scene towards the end where Mr. Fox regards a Wolf in the wild. The Wolf is an obvious symbol for the Wild Animal ideal Mr. Fox once celebrated but must now abandon in order to preserve the family unit he cherishes. After failing to make verbal communication, the Wolf just simply waves to him and runs away. Mr. Fox waves back, finally saying goodbye to his wild animal lifestyle.

What’s most interesting about the film’s ending is the way it may offer a bit of hope to struggling families out there in these tough economic times. The ending finds Mr. Fox and his family forced out of their dream home and forced to rebuild their life in a smaller, more urban-like setting. In order to survive, the Foxes look to a local supermarket and realize they must ride the waves of consumer culture if they want to stay afloat in their current world. While an ending like this could seem rather bittersweet, Anderson injects a cheerful optimism into it by enforcing his ideals of strong family bonding. The Foxes realize as long as they have each other and continue to love to the fullest, they can overcome any hardship. Perhaps this is Anderson slyly trying to ease contemporary anxieties over societal issues by enforcing important humanist values. For if Anderson’s dysfunctional characters can find true happiness in their world and in each other, then there’s hope for the rest of us!

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is an offbeat family film that can be satisfied on many different levels. Parents wanting to take their kids to a satisfying family film will be delighted by the whimsical energy and creative flourishes this one dispenses while also being surprised by its hidden wisdom. More thoughtful moviegoers will be satisfied by the film’s subtle sense of character depth and humanist musings usually unconventional to most family outings. And of course, devoted Wes Anderson fans will be deeply satisfied to discover that he powerfully serves up each of his auteurist ideals in an animated gem that can stand with his most thoughtful of works.

A Wonderful 'Education'

by Brett Parker

On its surface, An Education has the DNA of a crowd-pleasing coming-of-age tale regarding a young woman, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more intelligent, lively, and entertaining play on such a tale. Here’s a movie that deals with complicated matters of femininity and the human heart, yet it pops with sunniness and has a cheerful affection for all its characters. This film is so many things at once: a romantic celebration of life, a portrait of London on the brink of the swingin’ sixties, a meditation on post-modern thoughts regarding a woman’s appropriate place in the world, and, in Carrey Mulligan’s performance, the birth of a shining star.

It’s the early 1960s, and Jenny Mellor (Mulligan) is a bright-eyed suburban girl from London who is studying with all her efforts to gain acceptance at Oxford. This is a goal put into her head by her strict yet sincere father, Jack (Alfred Molina), who only wants the best for his daughter and wants to see her succeed in ways he never did. Jenny dives head-first into her studies and seems poised for academic greatness, yet lingering within her heart is passions that yearn for a more freeing life. Her love of French culture and classical music certainly hints at dreams of a lifestyle that stretches far beyond Oxford.

One day, Jenny stands on a street corner waiting to get a ride home from her cello practice when she suddenly gets caught in a heavy rainstorm. This grabs the attention of an English gentleman named David (Peter Sarsgaard) who spots her from his sports car and offers her a lift home. David seems like such a stylish and charming lad that Jenny goes along with his offer and is even a tad fascinated by him. Despite the obvious age difference (she’s 16, he’s 35), the two become hopelessly attracted to each other and thus begins a careful courtship in which Jenny is whisked away towards the more fabulous sights of London, seeing things she never thought existed in her section of the world. David is a hip and swingin’ smooth operator who takes Jenny to concerts, jazz clubs, art auctions, and even a breathtaking roam through Paris. Joining them on their adventures is David’s posh friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike).

Jenny is smitten with her exciting new lifestyle with David, yet obvious complications with this relationship begin to surface before long. Can Jenny’s parents really be accepting of a man like David (the result may surprise you)? Is it wise for Jenny to take her eyes off of her Oxford goals and towards a more uninhibited lifestyle? Can a 17-year-old girl and a 35-year-old man really have a genuine relationship? And what is there to make of David? What’s his backstory? Where does he get all his money? Is he too good to be true?

An older man courting a teenage girl may sound like a creepy and cynical concept, yet An Education refreshingly scans the material for wild romanticism and biting wit without ever smoothing over the complexities of the central relationship. Director Lone Scherfig uses a great technical elegance in basking the film’s gaze with Jenny’s wide-eyed exuberance, so we see the beauty in everything the way Jenny sees it. This makes the film’s central relationship seem more sincere and accepting than it probably really is. It also makes the film’s compositions pop with dazzling juice. The wardrobes are stylish, the set pieces sparkle, and the actor’s charms infatuates. From the Stanley Donen-like opening titles to the vintage hipness of the film’s soundtrack, this film bounces with a stylish joyfulness.

Nick Hornby is one of my all-time favorite authors for the way he sees basic human types in the most sharply funny and startlingly sympathetic light. His most famous novels, High Fidelity and About A Boy are such brilliant portraits of the contemporary male mind that he has been branded a master writer of masculine tales. Yet when his works focus on female characters (How to Be Good, A Long Way Down, Juliet, Naked), he can be just as vivid and alluring in his characterizations. So while An Education seems like an unlikely place for Hornby to take on his second screenplay (after his unsuccessful U.K. adaptation of his very own Fever Pitch), it must be said that it provides a perfect outlet for his uncompromisingly humorous view of human depths. In adapting Lyn Barber’s memoir for the big screen, Hornby uses his trademark hipness and hilarity to show us the beating heart of a teenage girl, and the result is sublime. He masterfully constructs a penetrating and engaging tale of a woman with the same wonderful illumination he brings to his masculine tales.

Carrey Mulligan’s performance as Jenny has garnered her comparisons with Audrey Hepburn, a type of film criticism I’m often weary of. There was a time when countless actors were compared with Marlon Brando, until most critics made the realization that they’ll never really be another Brando, much like there won’t be another Hepburn. Still, it’s not hard to see why such a flattering title is bestowed upon Mulligan; she glows with the same radiant loveliness and British elegance Hepburn used to display so effortlessly. Mulligan pours such a dewy-eyed sincerity and glowing independence into the role that’s its enormously difficult not to fall in love with her. And when it comes to swingin’ hipsters basked in Britannia coolness, the American Peter Sarsgaard is probably the last actor I’d think of to take on such a roll. Yet he so shrewdly and surprisingly nails David’s nuances that the role is rather astonishing. Playing on Michael Caine’s limey slyness, Sarsgaard creates a stunningly convincing English lad in an absolutely dynamite performance. Major awards are due for both performers here.

One would be rather obtuse in labeling Jenny’s main conflict as choosing between a man and her career. In weathering the storms of her young heart, Jenny allows us to reflect on feminine complexities most young women face as they ponder their futures. Jenny could have a promising career at Oxford, but couldn’t such a devotion to academics and societal conformity lead to a stuffy life devoid of soulful nourishment and coloring? Should a woman be true to the wild passions of her heart, or should she challenge her intellect and obtain the strongest social role possible? Jenny also presents questions about what is the best kind of social stability for a woman. She is shocked to discover that her parents are content with her abandoning Oxford to settle down with a husband, as long as it’s with an established and accomplished individual such as David. This raises ancient ideals about a woman settling down with a successful husband versus using her own gifts to make her own way in the world. I think most women will be enormously satisfied with, and maybe even enlightened by, the path Jenny ultimately decides for herself. It’s greatly liberating to see a female character on film being free enough to have such perplexing thoughts and being able to take their own independent stance on matters.

With all the things An Education does exceptionally right, it does have its missteps along the way. I found Jenny’s classroom world too extremely immersed in her romantic affairs (would her entire class and Headmistress really be that involved in her personal business at this time in history?) and the film’s conclusion wraps things up a little too cleanly. But these are only minor complaints. It seems like nothing could hold back An Education from being considered a superior coming-of-age tale with more color and heart than most films of this sort could only dream about. For growing up can be a painful thing to endure, but rarely has it looked this enlivening.

'2012': Beautifully Destructive

by Brett Parker

If I absolutely had to choose my least favorite genre of cinema, then I would probably select the disaster film. I know I’m supposed to be dazzled by grandly destructive special effects, but mostly I just see cardboard characters laboring endlessly to escape preposterously hazardous scenarios. While these films are meant to shock us with their displays of destruction and warm us over with a hidden sense of humanity, very rarely do these films shake things up in a shocking way or free their characters into perplexing depths. Of course there has been some exceptional disaster flicks over the years, but nowadays they feel few and far in between.

2012 would more or less be just another disaster flick if it didn’t set out to be the mother of all disaster flicks. In annihilating Planet Earth as we know it, director Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day) pulls out no stops in throwing every catastrophic force of nature he can think of at our beloved planet. Over the course of this film, we get thumped with lava, earthquakes, tsunamis, meteor-like boulders, the whole works! In watching these elaborate effects sequences, it becomes extremely difficult not to notice the earlier films this one borrows so heavily from. We can easily spot shades of Earthquake, Poseidon, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Speed 2, and Waterworld (yes, even Speed 2 and Waterworld!). This makes 2012 feel like a greatest hits album that rounds up all the big gems you want into one satisfying package.

The film opens sometime around 2009 and shows members of Earth in a state of apocalyptic suspicion. A geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) notices that the Earth’s core is showing dangerous signs of disruption. The U.S. President (Danny Glover) learns of a recovery plan to protect mankind from some kind of worldwide disaster. The President’s Daughter (Thandie Newton) is part of a plot to store away the world’s most valued artifacts and discovers certain colleagues are being mysteriously killed. Just what is going on here? A crackpot DJ (Woody Harrelson) may just hold the answer: the Mayan prophecy foretelling that the world shall end in the year 2012 is materializing to be true and within a couple of years, the planets will align and Earth as we know it shall crumble into oblivion.

Sure enough, 2012 rolls around and the Earth begins to tear apart violently at the seams. The plates of the Earth begin to break apart and cause devastating Earthquakes across the globe. The lava from the Earth’s core begins to shoot out from underneath and transforms all sorts of landmarks into deadly Volcanoes. The disruption of these land masses cause devastating tsunamis to drown out much of the world. Basically, all hell breaks loose. We see these nightmarish events through the eyes of an author named Jackson Curtis (John Cusack, playing a character that bears 50 Cent’s real name in reverse-ha!), who tries to save his ex-wife, Kate (Amanda Peet), and two children (Liam James & Morgan Lilly) from as many threats as possible. His plan consists of traveling to China, where it is rumored that an enormous shelter of some kind has been destructed to save a fraction of mankind. They achieve this through the help of Kate’s plastic surgeon boyfriend (Tom McCarthy) who is able to fly them around in a stolen plane (a plastic surgeon who knows how to fly a plane…of course!)

Roland Emmerich has apparently spent his Hollywood career fashioning himself as some kind of “master of disaster.” He fancies blockbuster tales of simplistic and virtuous people who become threatened or attacked by ominous, dreadful, and hostile forces. His movies try to convey the message that humanist values will always persevere in the face of an overwhelmingly damaging threat. While this can be an effective lesson, his efforts to make it feel heartfelt come across as too plastic. We just don’t feel like there’s any real heart or inspiration in his “human” characters. Emmerich always employs talented actors who labor hard to make catastrophic bystanders convincing, but there’s too little juice present in the characters to make us actually care about them. It’s always more special to see a disaster film favor characters over action sequences (Peter Weir’s Fearless is a wonderful demonstration of this).

In a world that has seen 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, and the collapse of the American economy, do people really need to be reminded of a prophecy that states the world will collapse within a few more years? Does Emmerich truly believe that in these bleak times, people want to see images of life as we know it blown to complete smithereens? Perhaps Emmerich suspected his film could work as some sort of release therapy for paranoid and fearful people. After all, moviegoers attend these films to vicariously work out their anxieties and fears over deadly catastrophes striking their very own world. Maybe this was the perfect time to release a 2012 film that can truly strike a chord with audiences.

I suppose, then, that it’s good news that Emmerich allows a heightened yet hopeful optimism to infect the film’s third act. The closing scenes show the leaders of the world trying to preserve humans, animals, plants, and cultural artifacts into gigantic, spaceship-like Arcs that have been built to withhold the force of outsized forces of nature. These gigantic Arcs make for some nifty special effects work and as implausible as this development this may seem, Emmerich brings it conviction and harnesses it towards an exciting final act. This even leads to a Spielbergian ending of mind-blowing sunniness. While a more thoughtful director may have admirably forced us to endure a more complex and uncompromising conclusion, it Emmerich may have slyly put some of our more paranoid anxieties about 2012 at ease and I’m actually rather grateful for that.

2012 is entered next to Stargate, The Patriot, and Independence Day on my list of Roland Emmerich films that are entertaining and effective, as opposed to his hopelessly boring efforts, The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 B.C. The running time can be taxing and the character developments are rather shameless, but the effects scenes are so epic and mind-blowing that they truly deserve a look on the big screen. For let’s face it, people will be lining up for big time action and not for intelligent dialogue and thoughtful characters. Now if a filmmaker were to come along and put all three of those ingredients into this genre, then we could very well have a masterpiece on our hands!

A 'Carol' Worth Cherishing

by Brett Parker

Of all the various incarnations of A Christmas Carol I’ve seen over the years, no specific one stands out as being visually supreme or aesthetically definitive. Sure, most of them do a considerable justice to Charles Dickens’ classic tale, but that’s usually the sole efficient thing it does right. Most of these adaptations present camera work at a very elemental level and produce competent Ebenezer Scrooges that seem fearful from breaking away from tradition. Most people usually discuss which actor gave the best portrayal of Hamlet, but how many discussions have you ever heard regarding the best portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge? Even the moderate revisionist takes failed to make long-lasting impressions.

The triumph of Robert Zemeckis’ current take on A Christmas Carol is how he honors the images of Dickens’ classic in a film that’s so dazzling, energetic, emotional, and spunky, it’s damn near impossible to think of a past film or future telling that can top it. By employing the same 3-D Motion Capture Animation he employed with The Polar Express and Beowulf, Zemeckis is able to give the story a sublime and mystic look that plays up the magic of the story while still pulling top-notch drama from the characters. And when you bring an A-list level of magic and drama to one of the most imaginative and inspiring literary tales of all time, you can expect a film of unyielding power.

If you happen to be one of those rare creatures who are grossly unfamiliar with this endlessly beloved tale, allow me to detail it for you: Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a hopelessly cynical and frighteningly bitter businessman in Victorian-era England. With his frail body and pointy nose, Scrooge has a blackened heart and a miserable outlook to match the unpleasantness of his physical appearance. He constantly scolds and berates his office worker, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), he coldly alienates himself from his only living nephew, Fred (Colin Firth), and he harshly denies any charity to two Portly Gentlemen (Cary Elwes & Julian Holloway) who seek funds to help the poor. What irritates Scrooge the most is the Christmas Holiday, the day in which people act so merry and cheerful that it threatens his bleak and horrid outlook on life. There appears to be no lightness or hope within his troubled spirit.

One Christmas Eve night, Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Marley (Gary Oldman), Scrooge’s deceased business partner. Marley was just as cold and greedy as Scrooge was in real life and is now condemned to an afterlife of torture and despair for his wicked ways. He warns Scrooge that he is destined for such a horrible fate unless he can turn his life around. He tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (all played by Carrey, thanks to the animation) who will help him understand the folly of his ways and how he can redeem himself. Throughout the course of the night, Scrooge is haunted by these magical and wise spirits who whisk him away to show him the effects he has on Christmases across time. Through this supernatural intervention, Scrooge is able to better understand how heartbreak and loss has affected him, how Cratchit is coping with a sick son named Tiny Tim (also Oldman, gotta love this stuff!), and what dark and terrifying things await the future is Scrooge does not change his cold ways.

By employing Motion Capture Animation to this tale, Zemeckis is able to make the surface of his film sparkle with remarkable gloss while retaining the plights and depths of the actors’ performances. The technology captures the human performances and transplants the mannerisms into computer effects, allowing their emotions to be transferred to computer-animated avatars. This technology allows an actor’s performance to be manipulated towards any physical look and stature the story demands. That’s how Jim Carrey is able to play both Scrooge and the Three Ghosts interacting with each other while the 51-year-old Gary Oldman is allowed to embody young Tiny Tim. This technology isn’t merely a cinematic stunt, but is used to honor both the mythic look and dramatic undercurrents of the characters themselves. For example, the animation fills in both the bizarre and outsized physiques Dickens envisioned for, say, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present while being able to retain the human emotions underneath. This easily makes Zemeckis’ Carol the best looking incarnation to ever grace the screen.

Zemeckis has spent his filmmaking career carving out grand adventure tales, yet basking his characters in heartfelt emotions that spare these stories from being disposable exercises. Think about the way Marty McFly despaired of his best friend, Doc Brown, being put in harm’s way. Or how Eddie Valiant was deeply wounded by the death of his brother. Or when Chuck Noland cried helplessly after loosing his imaginary friend, Wilson. Zemeckis has a knack for unearthing startling dramatic depths within seemingly lightweight characters and it’s this very talent that rescues A Christmas Carol from being just another elaborate animation stunt. What’s amazing is how this grand tale clocks in at way under two hours, yet every dramatic base the original story presented is covered and fully realized in this timeframe. As the plot moves from cynicism to heartbreak to despair to redemption and finally to cheerfulness, Zemeckis never shortchanges us on the drama and we feel the full weight of Dickens’ original intentions. Even though some of the adventure sequences drag on for too long and the pace might be a tad too zippy, Zemeckis still dishes out a masterful take on this famous story.

When I first heard that Jim Carrey was cast in the role of Scrooge, I assumed his comic talents would be greatly summoned to make Scrooge a caricature of high comic energy. What’s ultimately surprising and rewarding is how Carrey never plays Scrooge for laughs. This role can seriously be considered as one of his dramatic endeavors. When he’s not doing manic comic vehicles, Carrey has crafted a compelling career out of sincere outsiders who wrestle with their troubled depths. When we think of his more memorable characters, such as Truman Burbank or Andy Kaufman, we are usually looking at troubled outcasts who are perplexed by their isolation and ponder what it would take to fit in with other people. Carrey brings this sense of melancholy weight to this legendary role and crafts what has to be one of the most empathetic Scrooges we’ve ever seen. Of course, his great vocal and facial abilities are put to great use to construct Scrooge’s almost bizarre mannerisms, yet it’s the hurtful sadness in his eyes that make his Scrooge most memorable. Notice the bitterness in his voice when he regards his nephew’s love for his wife, or the way a glimpse into the future makes him startlingly identify with Bob Cratchit’s sense of loss. I truly wasn’t prepared for Carrey to fully discard cheap laughs and revel in the tragic depths of Scrooge’s tortured soul. The performance is rather astonishing.

The Internet Movie Database reports that there are at least 50 cinematic incarnations of the classic Dickens’ tale throughout film history. Since I haven’t seen each and every one, I cannot officially declare Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol the best version I’ve ever seen. Yet I can’t imagine any version possibly outdoing this one. No past Carol could possibly be as visually detailed and exhilarating as this one. No past actor could possibly embody Scrooge with such detail and poignancy as Jim Carrey. And it seems extremely difficult to picture any past adaptation entirely honoring the iconic stature of Dickens’ themes in such a wildly entertaining package.