I can only surmise that the people who have given this good reviews watch TV Movies regularly and have incredibly low expectations. I do not, but came to this as fan of the story. I've seen a LOT of adaptations and I can say with certainty that this is the worst one I have ever come across.
I've got nothing against Kelsey Grammar. Though not a Frasier fan, I respect him as an actor and have enjoyed his performances in a lot of other shows and movies. But in this...oh dear. He's awful. Hopelessly miscast and hammy. His repertoire involves squinting and frowning...and that's it.
The rest of the cast fares little better, but they're far from the worst thing about this cheap production. First and foremost, this is a musical but there's not one decent song in the entire film. In fact, the songs aren't really songs at all. It's just dreary dialogue set to verse. There's no choruses, no rhymes, no real lyrics. Just meandering vocals accompanied by dancing that is totally out of place. The whole thing resembles a really bad opera. The only times the movie had my full attention was during the occasional lapses in verse when, mercifully, the script would call upon Dickens's original dialogue.
I didn't think it was possible to mess up an adaptation of Dickens's timeless story so much, but this production enlightened me. While it's a nice idea to show us exactly why Scrooge is a miser (most other adaptations simply explain why he's miserable), to explain that his father was imprisoned is off-book and totally wrong. Bizarrely, this is actually a nod to Dickens himself rather than his creation. Other adjustments (such as Scrooge's lost love Belle being called Emily, or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come being unmasked from its regular guise as a Grim-reaper style ghoul to a dancing old woman) are not quite as jarring but are still pretty pointless.
Direction is pedestrian. I understand this was originally a theatre production but some sort of effort to transform it cinematically wouldn't have gone amiss. The aforementioned dancing sequences (particularly out of place in the sombre future sequences) go on for far too long and are just totally mundane and unimpressive to an audience watching this on TV.
The whole thing is cheap, dull and unimaginative. There are countless adaptations of this story out there so newcomers should start with Sim. And when it comes to a musical adaptation, look no further than the Muppets.
I've got nothing against Kelsey Grammar. Though not a Frasier fan, I respect him as an actor and have enjoyed his performances in a lot of other shows and movies. But in this...oh dear. He's awful. Hopelessly miscast and hammy. His repertoire involves squinting and frowning...and that's it.
The rest of the cast fares little better, but they're far from the worst thing about this cheap production. First and foremost, this is a musical but there's not one decent song in the entire film. In fact, the songs aren't really songs at all. It's just dreary dialogue set to verse. There's no choruses, no rhymes, no real lyrics. Just meandering vocals accompanied by dancing that is totally out of place. The whole thing resembles a really bad opera. The only times the movie had my full attention was during the occasional lapses in verse when, mercifully, the script would call upon Dickens's original dialogue.
I didn't think it was possible to mess up an adaptation of Dickens's timeless story so much, but this production enlightened me. While it's a nice idea to show us exactly why Scrooge is a miser (most other adaptations simply explain why he's miserable), to explain that his father was imprisoned is off-book and totally wrong. Bizarrely, this is actually a nod to Dickens himself rather than his creation. Other adjustments (such as Scrooge's lost love Belle being called Emily, or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come being unmasked from its regular guise as a Grim-reaper style ghoul to a dancing old woman) are not quite as jarring but are still pretty pointless.
Direction is pedestrian. I understand this was originally a theatre production but some sort of effort to transform it cinematically wouldn't have gone amiss. The aforementioned dancing sequences (particularly out of place in the sombre future sequences) go on for far too long and are just totally mundane and unimpressive to an audience watching this on TV.
The whole thing is cheap, dull and unimaginative. There are countless adaptations of this story out there so newcomers should start with Sim. And when it comes to a musical adaptation, look no further than the Muppets.