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.

Up is an animated flick from the fine folks at Pixar, about a senile old man who accidentally kidnaps a young boy as he flies his house to South America.

The film does not mess about, and chucks you right in at the deep end, to the point where I would say that it moves too quickly. This continues throughout most of the film, with things seemingly happening far too easily, and lots of happy coincidences. If you imagine a film with nice pacing is like drinking a lovely smooth cup of hot chocolate, Up is like drinking a mug of hot chocolate that hasn't been stirred properly. It's lumpy.

At the start, we're treated to a montage of a little boy and girl who meet and then grow old together. They have the kind of happy life you would expect of a Pixar film: meet as kids, fall in love, get married, get pregnant, lose the baby, have a picnic. Wait, what was that? Oh yeah, there's some really dark and adult themes in this film, which came as quite a surprise. Along with the miscarriage, there's a social commentary on old age, commercialism, and even the little boy's dad doesn't love him. There's also blood, which I found even more shocking than the miscarriage. Spontaneous abortion sounds like something Pixar might do.

While it was refreshing to see, I couldn't help but feel they didn't make the most of their new-found seriousness, though I don't know if this was because they didn't know how to, or they remembered they were supposed to be making a kids' film.

I laughed a lot when I watched this. Like most other animated films, it's very quirky. Also, like most other animated films, there's a lot of over-the-top action sequences. I'm kind of fed up with these now, as they appear in all animated films, and they aren't needed most of the time. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have to. It just makes it very predictable.

The film looks really good, both in style and quality, though some of the physics of the whole thing don't make any sense. I personally found it quite irritating that it took so many liberties and contradicted itself on numerous occasions, though I am a big fan of gravity.

On the whole, I found the film brilliant visually, and very funny, but it just felt all too familiar. There's not really anything original here, and what little new territory it does attempt to tread, it gives up on pretty quickly. Add to that the pacing feels clunky, and you're left with an experience that's just not satisfying.

I wish that it really was about a senile old man who kidnaps a young boy and takes him to South America. Someone get Robert Rodriguez on the job. Danny Trejo can play the dog.

Tangled is the latest effort from Disney and tells the classic story of Rapunzel. It all begins when a drop of sunlight falls to earth and grows into a magical golden flower that makes you younger when you sing a special song to it. The 4th problem I noticed about this is how the hell did they know what the song was? Did a piece of moon fall to earth and turn into an instruction manual?

The film starts with a rather extensive back story which glazes over some quite important events I thought, in particular Rapunzel being kidnapped and how she got her magic hair.

The film is also pretty much based around the idea that Rapunzel wants to go and see some lanterns which are released by the king and queen to pray for their daughter's safe return. Personally, I would have opted for a big search party, but that's probably just me being logical.

Rapunzel is supposed to be 18, but she looks like a 13 year old Bratz doll. The hair was the biggest problem for me. Firstly, how the hell do you get that much hair? Was the old woman feeding her testosterone supplements or something? The hair doesn't burden her in the way you would think about 100 meters of the stuff would either. It would be so heavy that it would drag her out of the window, and when she got it all tied up it would snap her weak little neck. I'm surprised she didn't face-butt herself in the tits when her hair got cut off with all the strain it must take to counterbalance.

The handsome man character must have a fractured skull from the amount of blows he takes to the head. I thought the way the old woman found a poster of the guy in his bag was a cheap way of her finding out who to look for, and it made little difference because she magically just seemed to find them in a pub anyway. I suppose that was the obvious place to look for an 18 year old though.

The flashback sequence where Rapunzel realises she's the kidnapped princess was cheap and reminded me of that scene in Spirited Away where the girl just comes out with the right answers off the top of her head. This was the only big problem with the film for me, and it's pretty much just down to lazy writing.

Films with songs in take liberties with exposition, and they tread a fine line between singing about what's going on, and singing about what is actually happening because it needs to be said but would be awkward to just come out and say it in dialogue. The first song of the film falls into the latter, and rivals Rebecca Black's Friday for stating the fucking obvious.

The animation in the film is very nice, and as always I enjoyed the quirks of the film, like Rapunzel trying to hide the guy in the wardrobe, and of course, Max the horse. The trouble for me is something that affects all animated films, so don't take this personally, Tangled. Because animation allows you to do things bigger and more over-the-top than live action, animated films seem to exploit this to the extreme. In every animated film there is at least one ridiculous chase scene and/or fight scene, and I'm beginning to get bored of them now. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to.

Having said that, Tangled is a very good family film, and if you enjoy animation you should definitely give it a watch.