Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Micitype Pretty Good

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

sddavis63 You can call this my "Christmas in July" moment. I had recorded this movie way back on Christmas Eve of last year and somehow never got around to watching it. (Nor had I ever seen it before actually.) Discovering it among my recordings this morning, I thought - why not? So I turned it on. I loved the closing credit: "Suggested by Charles Dickens." Yes - a "suggestion" probably comes closest. Nothing more. It's a modern retelling of "A Christmas Carol," starring Bill Murray as the "Scrooge" character (although in this, he's Francis Xavier Cross) - the completely mean-spirited head of a television network who's putting on what seems to be a very adult-oriented live version of Dickens' classic, forcing everyone to work on Christmas Eve and promoting it with some of the weirdest promos ever. He treats the network staff terribly, gives cheap towels with the network logo as Christmas bonuses, and fires one executive while making his assistant's life miserable. He's Scrooge, in other words. I find it amusing that some criticize this movie because Cross is mean. Um - he's Scrooge. He's supposed to be mean.All the elements of Dickens' story are there. The characters all have their own incarnations. There's a Marley's Ghost, and three spirits, and a Cratchit (well, really the above mentioned two) and a Tiny Tim and even a past love interest for Cross. One change to the story is that in this Cross has a boss of his own to deal with and who he feels unfairly treated by.Murray was fine in the role of Cross. The supporting cast ranged all the way from Buddy Hackett (as Scrooge in the IBC network's fictional adaptation) to John Forsythe as Cross's boss. Aside from Murray, the most memorable performance probably came from Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who was actually quite funny. The movie has an opening that certainly captures your attention - a shootout scene involving Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole - and that makes you wonder what the *** is going on here? It ends obviously with the account of Cross's redemption, although to be honest that struck me as way too over the top even for this movie and left me on a bit of a sour note. I did enjoy the rendition of "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" that played during the closing credits. People seem to have either a love it or hate it reaction to "Scrooged." I don't really get the extremes. It's not a Christmas movie that I could see myself wanting to watch every December (or every July) but it was pleasant enough viewing as a one time thing and it had a few chuckles thrown in. (5/10)

leplatypus this new watching left me disappointed while in my memories, it was a good moment: i'm sure that the lack of subtitles put me in pain but anyway this time i found the movie really dark, oppressive and not really funny in spite of being a Christmas tale! The past work of Dickens is a gloom reading, the future work of Zemeckis won't be lighter... In addition, if Murray has a few good lines, 99% of his time is being a really cold, totally acid, egocentric TV producer and that hurts! So it's not like having Christmas with cool Venkman but with the sad Connors...Sure the end of this tale warms the heart but the way to get there is as painful as a cold, dark winter night...

ericventura Scrooged, born of the unimaginative minds of untalented producers, attempts to render a classic into a modern adaptation (for originality). Clearly setting up a parallel between the classic story and the movie's story, the development is not lost on the viewer and could have been admirable, if it were not so obvious and actually contributed to the overall product. However, soon after the first minutes of the movie, the supposed ingenuity was lost and replaced with the typical, formulaic comedy movie starring a bumbling businessman, a hopeless love, and the newly recruited executive. While there are a few elicited laughs, the comedy is speckled with monologues, hopelessness, and anger, turning a Murray comedy into a drama. Maybe Donner was shooting for something like Fargo (1996), except that he forgot how to make a film, instead using the wrong movie mold straight off the shelf. The acting is typical of your typical comedy: typical, reminiscent of Happy Gilmore (1996). Everything was typical, possibly excluding the set and artistic direction aspect with the ghost costumes and TV sets. Unfortunately, the only question this film made me ask was: Why did I watch this film? Technically, the movie attacked the morality of corrupt and greedy businessmen, offering the resolution of living a humanitarian lifestyle, but it was simply adapted from a story as well-known as the Bible. The framing of the story by the writers was decent due to its parallelism to the adapted story and well-structured flashbacks, but they seemed to have forgotten their knock-knock joke book at home when they wrote the script. At least, Murray helped a bit with his classic improvisations. Should anyone watch this movie the day after they watched it the first time, it would be a completely new experience because they won't be able to remember anything of this unmemorable movie. Scrooge could remember his humanity, but Scrooged won't be remembered at all.

Christmas-Reviewer BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM VERY HONEST ABOUT THESE FILMS.Another spin on the Charles Dickens tale this time set in the world of American Network Television. By updating the story (To then present day New YorK) also stripped away the heart and since of innocence to the beloved novel. In this version Bill Murray plays the Scrooge but here his name is Frank Cross a Network Television President. Franks idea of Christmas programming is basically putting the Manson Family on Television if it will get ratings. Of course he learns to take in the joy of the season by the end of the movie but the film makers themselves failed to infuse the story of heart. This film is a tad better than the HALLMARK Christmas MOVIES but that is because David Johansen steels every scene away from Bill Murray. Please if you want to see a great Version of "A Christmas Carol" see the 1938 Version produced by MGM. It set the standard