Urgh, there’s a ghostly shiver up my spine when I realise my next Youtube yuletide effort, 2004's Karroll's Christmas is yet another take on Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', this one from director of various Adam Sandler vehicles Denis Dugan. I can almost picture the Sand-man in this one in the role of grouchy Allen Karroll, receiver of spooky Christmas Eve visitors, though I'll bet the Big Daddy star took one look at the script and politely passed. When Adam Sandler thinks your project is too low-brow, that's when you know something is up. Instead, we have Tom Everett Scott doing his best to keep things merry.
Credit where it's due, this one is yet another novel spin on the Dickens classic, this time a comedy with the spirits accidentally visiting the wrong house. Problem is, the crappy-to-funny joke ratio is skewed way towards the former. It's a decent idea with Allen getting a peak at the life of his short-tempered neighbour Mr Rosecog (ooh, anagrams - see what they did there?) played by Wallace Shawn and learns not to judge a book by its cover.
This one shows us that some people have very legitimate reasons for hating the holidays - take that, Kirk Cameron! Unfortunately, it's a seriously uneven film, packed with lame, lazy jokes. The Jacob Marley ghost is reimagined as a bumbling ancestor of Bob Marley, with dreads and all, who messes things up due to all the "magic smoke" coming out of his cubicle at work, ho ho! Elsewhere, we get corny butt jokes rubbing shoulders with scenes of genuine emotional devastation. It's an odd mix and doesn't work.
At least Larry Miller is ace as the nutty Ghost of Christmas Present who refuses to listen to Allen's pleas that he's got the wrong guy. Miller salvages the film somewhat, just by being so naturally funny as the ex-stand-up comedian spirit. Miller's deadpan delivery and exquisite comic timing make this all work, conveying a world-weary, seen-it-all-before guy just desperate to get the job done and get home. We've all been there.
The Future ghost is suitably dark and frightening until it's revealed he's played by 'Mini-Me' Verne Troyer because little people are just meant to be intrinsically funny, I guess? There’s a Ghost of Christmas Present in there too, but I’ve already forgotten about her, so she couldn’t have been that good.
There is something admirable about how knowingly silly and anarchic the film is, with nobody involved taking any of this remotely seriously but it just doesn't quite all hang together as something particularly satisfying. I'll concede that they do deserve extra points for keeping me guessing as to how the spirits will sort this mess out, turning their two-Scrooges-for-the-price-of-one into true Christmas believers. If anything, this one reminds me that Larry Miller should be in more films.
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