By Jack Shanley

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought it would only be right to review ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’.Thirty years since its original release, it hasn’t aged, only grown better in time. This beautifully crafted heart-warming adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel is an amazing film which offers so much, from the wacky screwball comedy of the Muppets to the seriousness of Michael Caine as Scrooge. In my opinion this is the best adapation out there, for its fun wacky comedy aspect, seriousness and its lack of shyness for the true horror and essence the story holds. As dark as the material can be, we still must go to those dark places for the ending to be as joyous. Dark in periods, especially with the three ghosts, makes it far more memorable and interesting than any of the ghosts from other Christmas Carol movies. The film focuses on not just Scrooge’s life but his whole perspective of life too. We see examples of this in the introduction. We don’t see Scrooge’s face, only low shots emphasising his monstrous visage, and tilted shots to show his twisted view of the world. Something this movie does that I really appreciate is it really hits the serious tone hard during the third ghost. They remove the comic relief that’s kept our spirits up this whole time and force us to witness the horror that awaits Scrooge in the future thus making the ending strong, joyful and that bit more special. Apart from being vastly entertaining, the acting is also superb. Caine’s fantastic performance - changing from a menacing man to a warm, charming man who’s joy is so infectious - arguably carries the film. The songs throughout are fantastic quality too as they’re fun, catchy and will leave you humming the tunes for quite a while. I’d highly recommend watching ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’ this Christmas with the spirit of the season shining through in every frame. For that I can’t help but give it FIVE stars. You can watch ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ on Disney Plus or go see it at the Lighthouse Cinema on December 19th. Director: Jim Henson – Rating: PG – Genre: Family/Fantasy – Run Time: 1h 25m – Language: English. For more film content please follow @movies4fanatics on Instagram.