Oct 081992
 
two reels

Old humbug Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine) learns the meaning of Christmas from three spirits, but this time, the three spirits are made of felt.

The duality of this film is a bit much, even for a film with a talking frog. On the one hand, it is a very straight and rather dull re-telling of the Dickens’ tale, with the normally interesting Caine bringing nothing new to the lead. On the other, it is a rollicking, silly musical narrated by a comical piece of cloth and a sidekick rat-puppet. The two parts never meet. Caine and the other humans don’t even notice they are surrounded by muppets. They aren’t funny, nor are they particularly emotionally engaging. The muppet half of the film does work. The Great Gonzo (as Charles Dickens) and Rizzo the Rat (as, well, a rat) make one of the better comedy teams of recent years. The songs aren’t great, but better than those in the other musical versions of A Christmas Carol. Any fan of The Muppet Show will love the old men in the balcony as the Marley brothers. But there isn’t enough time spent with the talkative puppets for me to recommend doing more than catching The Muppet Christmas Carol when it turns up on a free TV station.

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