In order to cleanse my palate, I flipped over to Netflix to see if Scrooge: A Christmas Carol was worth watching. I did not know it was a musical. That is two musicals based on A Christmas Carol this year. Interesting.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Luke Evans) is a miserable old man who will gladly step on poor people if it would be beneficial to himself. On Christmas Eve, his old business partner Jacob Marley (Jonathan Pryce) tells him that he will be visited by three spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Olivia Colman), The Ghost of Christmas Present (Trevor Dion Nicholas), and The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Will the spirits be able to convince Scrooge to change his miserly ways?

While I love a good musical, I will admit that I didn’t like this at first. The animation is beautiful but the songs didn’t seem to fit. It wasn’t until The Ghost of Christmas Present appeared that I started to enjoy the songs. Thinking back, it’s possible that I was so caught off guard by the fact that this was a musical that I didn’t give myself a chance to actually enjoy the beginning parts. I will definitely go back and watch it again to see if that is the case.

Taking the songs out of it for a moment, I did love the way this version told the story. We are all very familiar with the story of Scrooge so it can be difficult to tell it in a new way that will keep people’s attention. I think that the Christmas Past portion was done very well and I loved the joy that Christmas Present had with being on Earth at Christmastime. All of this made a classic story interesting.

I think that fans of A Christmas Carol or animation in general would like this version of the story. But if you aren’t a fan of musicals….sorry, this one isn’t for you. As I said, I’m going to watch it again to see if I like it better now that I know it’s a musical. Sometimes even I get thrown off by a random song out of nowhere.