We think this is officially the 25th movie version of the classic Dickens tale, this time done with the performance capture technique director Robert Zemeckis used for The Polar Express and Beowulf. Reviews are split, basically along the line of how one feels about performance capture.
"...a marvelous and touching yuletide toy of a movie, and the miracle is that it goes right back to the gilded Victorian spirit of those black-and-white films of yore."
— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"...an exhilarating visual experience..."
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"Disney's A Christmas Carol is, in its essence, a product reel, a showy, exuberant demonstration of the glories of motion capture, computer animation and 3D technology. On that level, it's a wow. On any emotional level, it's as cold as Marley's Ghost."
— Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
"...a whiz-bang 3-D thrill-ride with all the emotional satisfaction squeezed out of it."
— Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
"Shortchanging traditional animation by literalizing it while robbing actors of their full range of facial expressiveness, the performance-capture technique favored by director Robert Zemeckis looks more than ever like the emperor's new clothes in Disney's A Christmas Carol."
— Todd McCarthy, Variety