Ebeneezer Scrooge (Tim Curry) is a cold hearted miser who makes no secret of his contempt for the holidays as he runs his moneylending services with no room for compassion or humanity. Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley (Ed Asner) who is now condemned to wander the Earth in the shackles he forged in life and tells Scrooge that a similar fate awaits him with an even longer and heavier chain. Marley offers Scrooge a chance to avoid his fate by telling him three ghosts, the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Kath Soucie), Present (Whoopi Goldberg), and Future who show Scrooge his long forgotten past, its effects on those in the here and now, and what may happen if he continues on his course unaltered.
A Christmas Carol is a 1997 direct-to-video film produced by noted TV animation company DIC Productions who will be familiar to many having grown up in the 80s and 90s with the company responsible for a number of noted Ips such as The Real Ghostbusters, the various Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons, and the early dubs of Sailor Moon among others. The film was released to little fanfare in October of 1997 through 20th Century Fox's home media label and received mixed to negative reviews from whatever critics actually bothered to watch it. Despite its quiet initial release, the movie would get some re-exposure in 2002 when it was aired on Nickelodeon as part of Nickelodeon's Sunday Movie Toons (aka DIC Movie Toons) a collection of animated TV movies DIC would broadcast on the network which eventually spurred a bare bones re-release in 2004 by Fox on DVD. There's really not much I can say about this 1997 A Christmas Carol as I've seen worse but I've also seen better, but with Tim Curry playing Scrooge it's not going to be boring.
If you've seen any animated project by DIC, you know pretty much what level of quality you can expect given the pedigree they've set for themselves with their various syndicated cartoon series that were produced with a "quantity over quality" mindset that was only occasionally elevated if there was strong writing underneath the material such as J. Michael Straczynski's work on The Real Ghostbusters that made that show of such high quality prior to ABC hiring consulting firm Q5 and crippling the show. Animated by South Korea's Han Yang Productions which has worked on everything from Disney Afternoon staples like Gargoyles to considerably lesser material like various Goodtimes and Golden Films produced knock-offs of Disney films, the animation is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum as it's made of very simple shapes, there's a lot of cycling, and there's some clumsy integration of light source effects and particle effects that clash with the animation. In comparison to some direct-to-video projects of the time it's a step down from certain endeavors such as Universal's Land Before Time films or certain Disney video productions.
In terms of the movie itself it covers the main points of the story without quite nailing the atmosphere (save for maybe the Ghost of Christmas future). Due to the animation style that seems more geared towards something slapsticky and simplicity including the inclusion of Scrooge's dog Debit the foreboding tone usually present in the first act of this story isn't all that well realized with Ed Asner's appearance as Marley not all that frightening or impactful despite Asner's best efforts. The three ghosts are a mixed bag with the most disappointing being the realization of Ghost of Christmas Past played by Kath Soucie whose design as a young boy is rather lacking and it just looks like a reused asset from DIC's Liberty's Kids. Surprisingly though I did enjoy Whoopi Goldberg as the Ghost of Christmas Present and considering Goldberg's personality and prior roles such as playing Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation she fits this role very well and the filmmakers do add an interesting touch with the character aging during the segment before she fades away which was more than I've seen with some adaptations of this story. Tim Curry being Tim Curry, his voice is basically gravy when it comes to any animated project as he makes good stuff even better and mediocre or bad things tolerable. While Curry's take on Scrooge is undeniably hammed up, that's kind of the whole point when it comes to casting Curry in the first place and despite that Curry does bring to life the emotional moments even in the Ghost of Christmas Future scene which respects the darkness of that scene with Curry doing quite well with the material. The movie's also a musical and it's not a particularly good one as the songs are all pretty bland and forgettable despite Tim Curry singing his heart out.
A Christmas Carol pretty much gave me what I was expecting so I wasn't annoyed or irritated at it, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to revisit it either. If you're a Christmas Carol completionist and you just want to see every version you'll definitely get some entertainment value from the presence of Tim Curry and at least the story maintains the focus where it should be, but in terms of the tone, atmosphere, and approach that helps make this story there are far better versions such as Mickey's Christmas Carol or the Richard Williams Christmas Carol that despite being shorter and omitting more are more spiritually (no pun intended) faithful to the material.
