Scrooged (1988) review

(6/10)

This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was fairly funny, freaky, and very modernized, but it's also shallow, bleak, and tacky.

PLOT:Frank Cross (Bill Murray) has been the manager of the IBC TV station for a while, and he's trying to make this year's Christmas special as can't-miss as possible. However, Frank is a shallow businessman who cares only about money and ratings for his Christmas. As he's preparing for the next night, Frank is visited by the dead apparition of his former boss, Lew Hayward (John Forsythe). He tells Frank that he will be visited by three ghosts starting at noon the next day. These ghosts are determined to change Frank's cold, greedy heart into a light, nice one in this modernized adaptation of the Dickens' story. It's a good plot executed fairly.



ACTING:The acting in here was alright for the most part. There were some bad performances and some good ones. Bill Murray mainly stole the role as Frank Cross, the Scrooge of this movie. He did a fine job. The other shiners would be John Forsythe as Lew Hayward, Karen Allen as Claire Phillips, John Glover as Brice Cummings, and David Johansen as the Ghost of Christmas Past. The rest were pretty sucky, I'd say.

SCORE:The score was mainly for dramatics, but it sounded pretty good. It wasn't anything special though.

EFFECTS:The effects in here are pretty good, I'd say. The effects used for make-up are pretty gruesome for each of the ghosts, and the effects used for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come are pretty scary. The effects are used pretty well.



OTHER CONTENT:This wasn't too bad. It had a few good funny moments thanks to Murray's acting, it was pretty freaky, and it was a very modernized take for the time. I liked how they made everything scarier to make a better effect. It actually works in here thanks to the more mature audience and modernized society. However, this also brings on a few cons. This edition is much more bleak and depressing as compared to the others. The presence of the Christmas spirit is really hard to find until the end scenes. It just comes off as dry and overused. It also gets dreadfully chinsy and tacky near the end. I wouldn't use cheesy, because it's worse than that. It's not the best Christmas Carol, but it isn't horrible either.

OVERALL,an ok Christmas movie with a good plot, ok acting, unimportant score, good effects, a few funny moments, added scares that actually work, and more modern ideas, but it's more bleak and shallow from other Christmas Carols, and it gets pretty tacky near the end.