Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes
Running time: 96 mins
Rating: ★★★

THE word to note in the title is Disney’s. What, you might be wondering, happened to Charles Dickens? Well, his story has been given a makeover as “a multi-sensory thrill ride re-envisioned by Academy Award-winning film-maker Robert Zemeckis”.

The cast is led by Jim Carrey and includes an array of familiar names but you won’t necessarily recognise them. As in Zemeckis’ Polar Express and Beowolf, the movie’s been shot using “performance capture”, where the live performances by the actors are digitally captured with computerised cameras.

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Added to which this Christmas Carol is in mind-boggling 3D, so a feast for the eye as the camera swoops and swirls. A few frills and thrills have been added to the familiar story as the ba-humbug miser is visited at the festive season by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come – all played by a multiaccented Carrey.

Nobody else gets much of a look in with Colin Firth’s relentlessly cheerful Fred, Bob Hoskins’ fussy Fezziwig and Robin Wright Penn’s former lover Belle quickly pushed aside by the many faces of Carrey.

The film has a PG but some of us adults found it pretty scary. It is, after all, a ghost story with plenty of things going bump in the night (and day).