THE FIRST HALF -- It's 84 degrees in early November, so the only reason to see another version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is to check out the performance of the actor playing Ebeneezer Scrooge.
     
Can anyone best Albert Finney? George C. Scott? Sir Laurence Olivier? Well, it would have been interesting to see how the talented Jim Carrey measured up, but instead we get a fake Jim Carrey.
     
Writer-director Robert Zemekis apparently is going to stick with his performance-capture animation technique until the technology catches up to his vision. It ain't there yet. The biggest problem is that it's too close to the real thing. Pure and unadulterated animation would be far less distracting and more real.
     
Instead, we see a fine actor, Gary Oldman, playing put-upon Bob Cratchett as a shrunken, weird-eyed, clunky-moving version of Gary Oldman, and the whole time we wish it was the real Gary Oldman. And oh, yes, there's Bob Cratchett and a classic story in there somewhere.
     
This is a timeless tale that lifts the spirit. There's no need for ornamentation. Make it animated or make it real, not some ill-fitted hybrid.
     
Here's a comparison for you: Watch "It's A Wonderful Life" this holiday season, and see what you feel inside, no matter how many times you've seen it, as George Bailey runs down the snow-covered street, laughing maniacally at all the beautiful things in his dreary little world.
     
Now imagine an animatron escaped from the Hall of Presidents lumbering down the street, looking around with stiff neck and glassy eyes. I'll take Jimmy Stewart. Two Hearts for "Disney's A Christmas Carol."
     
THE BETTER HALF -- It's a shame the movie industry has decided to act like Scrooges this holiday season with their new 3-D animated version of "Disney's A Christmas Carol."
     
You may be surprised to find that to see the 3-D version you'll be asked to pay from $1.50 to $3.50 more per ticket, which means a family of four could be paying a whopping $14 more.
     
Not that the First Half and I are misers, but we did a "bah, humbug" and saw the 2-D version for the regular price.
     
Judging from the 2-D "Christmas Carol," I'm still not crazy about the animation technique called performance capture. This method, that writer-director Robert Zemekis is so fond of, seems to have improved a bit since "The Polar Express," but it still tends to make connecting to characters difficult, and in turn, keeps emotions at bay.
     
Jim Carrey plays Scrooge at various ages and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. At times, I found myself very engaged because his eyes and facial features were quite expressive.
     
But then, we'd see supporting characters such as carolers or street vendors, and they would look either vacant with wandering eyes or demonic like Chucky. I was immediately taken out of the story.
     
The heavy action sequence in the future Christmases section, in which Scrooge is chased through the streets of London by the phantom of death, might appeal to the younger set, but to me it just lessened the heart of the Dickens tale.
     
In the end, this animated version made it seem like Scrooge was just selfishly more afraid of death and scorn than overcome by the true spirit of change, generosity and love toward others. Two-and-a-half Hearts.
 
Until next time, keep walking down the aisle ... Married to the Movies.