Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" is a classic story with as much vivaciousness as a newborn puppy. In Robert Zemeckis's animated take on Dickens's tale, the story arc remains the same, and the puppy's tail continues to wag with imaginative vigor.

Unfortunately, the film is the cinematic equivalent of a parent who, on Christmas Eve, moronically encloses such a puppy in layers of wrapping paper. Excuse the harsh imagery, but I feel such an image is necessary in order to prevent any possible viewings of this holiday disaster.

Zemeckis has taken a festive classic, tarnished it with his horrendously unattractive motion-capture animation, and increased the unsightliness tenfold with 3D sequences so distracting and persistent that the headache I endured post-viewing was nothing short of brutal. It's too much, Zemeckis, way too much.

This isn't the first time this brand of animation has been a distraction. Zemeckis has gone this route twice before, with "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf", and while the former stands as an indelible Christmas classic in my book, the animation remains a dilemma. In "Express," what was deemed as "dead eyes" gave the characters a soulless, unrealistic image, and while the eyes certainly seem more realistic in "A Christmas Carol," the overall feel of the film offers no sense of veracity whatsoever.

But of course, "A Christmas Carol" is a tale complete with ghosts and journeys through past, present, and future, so why should realism be considered an issue? Am I just using my disdain for a certain animation process to bash an otherwise respectable holiday film? No, of course not, because the animation is merely the first layer of the film's superfluous gift-wrap.

I can't compliment the screenplay, as it's simply Dickens's narrative repackaged with occasional scenes meant to enhance the gratuitous use of 3D. The characters, once wholesome and pure, become flawed through lack of personality and insipid development. Even Jim Carrey, who voices the notorious Ebenezer Scrooge, as well as the three ghosts, can't get his trademark personality to transfer through and shine. It's strange and somewhat tragic that an actor as animated as Carrey becomes boring as dirt when captured through the process of animation.

His voice "talent" fails even further through his interpretation of the three ghosts. With an annoying whisper and extension of words he hams his way through the Ghost of Christmas Past, while his Ghost of Christmas Present sounds like Ace Ventura doing a bad John Wayne impression. And why Carrey is credited as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come I do not know, since the character doesn't utter a single word while on screen.

I hope, I pray, I can only wish that parents won't allow this mainstream cacophony of animated din to be their child's first encounter with the magic of Dickens' original tale. The puppy can still live to see another day, just avoid seeing "A Christmas Carol" at all costs.

MOVIE REVIEW

'A Christmas Carol'

1 1/2 out of 4 stars