Robert Zemeckis brings us this animated re-imagining of the classic Dickens tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and poor crippled Tiny Tim. With an all-star cast including Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Bob Hoskins, we should all be in for a delightful Christmas treat, right?

Set in 19th century London, Scrooge is a tight-fisted penny-pincher with no interest in Christmas. I know what you're thinking. No, he's not Jewish. One Christmas Eve, he's visited by the ghost of his late business partner, who tells him that he's been bad, and to expect visits from three other ghosts; The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present, and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Later that night, he is indeed visited by these ghosts, and they systematically mentally break Scrooge down and convert him into a corporate whore who frivolously spends his money on nonsense and embarks on over-the-top chase sequences just to make it seem like the extra £5 audiences spend on a 3D screening is worth it.

The biggest problem the film suffers is that it moves at a blistering pace. It really flies through the story, and because of this, you never really get to meet any other characters except Scrooge. Even major characters like Bob Cratchet are side-lined thanks to the speed. There's no way you could read the book at the speed this film moves at, though I get the feeling Robert Zemeckis tried his very hardest to do so, because the parts of the script which he hasn't straight adapted from the book are very poorly written. It's like he's heard a few of the words they used back in the oldene dayse, but has no idea about the context and grammar, so just slips them into more modern sentences and phrases. You get me, chap?

There's a huge chase sequence where Scrooge is fleeing the final ghost, and I despise this scene. Not only is it a complete fabrication of the mind of whichever Disney executive forced Mr Zemeckis to write it into the script, but it's completely unnecessary, unexplained, and most importantly, inappropriate. It's like every animated film has a quota to meet of one over-the-top chase scene, and a Charles Dickens adaptation is no exception. More annoyingly, if this scene was removed, the film would be much better for it, because it would free up room to sort out the pacing issues.

The design of The Ghost of Christmas Past is very strange and quite frankly, poop. It has a fireball for a head, and makes unnecessary movements so that we can see his flaming hair flicker. Yes, you have some very nice fire animations there, Disney. Now can we get on with the film?

Also, the film ends very suddenly, and cuts out a lot of the parts of the story which tie things up. Most noticeably, we don't get to see the iconic scenes of Scrooge going round the to Cratchet household with a huge turkey. Instead, we get Bob Cractchet summarising that Scrooge is nice now, even to the disabled one.

The tone of this version is darker than most before it, and I do commend it for this. Some scenes are very well done, particularly the part where Scrooge is presented with his own grave, and the ground underneath him gives way, leaving him dangling 6 feet above his own casket.

Some nice ideas in there, but all things considered, the Muppets did it better.