By Lee Pfeiffer

Variety critic Todd McCarthy is playing Scrooge when it comes to evaluating director Robert Zemeckis' new 3-D animated version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol. While acknowledging that younger and more undemanding audiences will likely render the film a major hit, McCarthy says the timeless story has been degraded into a "so-called thrill ride" with animation techniques that rob the film of any emotional resonance. McCarthy says that little of star Jim Carrey's personality emerges in the course of the movie and that the project would have been better served as a live action endeavor. On a personal level, does anyone share my view that its rather obnoxious for Disney to take a possessive credit for this timeless tale? "Disney's A Christmas Carol"??? We weren't aware that Mouse House execs were sitting with Dickens when the story came into being. What's next: "Paramount's The Ten Commandments"? For more click here