Like many good writers Charles Dickens crafted his tale A Christmas Carol based upon true events and characteristics close to himself. This beloved, traditional story - so commonly known that many can recite the lines before spoken - has for more than 160 years has been read, re-read, performed and hailed so completely that it has become woven into the fabric of Christmas celebration. Next to the Nativity story A Christmas Carol may well be the most sentimental element of Christmas known to many.

That makes the challenge of retelling the tale almost insurmountable.

Remakes are notoriously "bad", especially when attempting to remake a classic. Beloved Christmas films in particular - Miracle on 34th Street, The Bishop's Wife, and It's a Wonderful Life, for example - have failed time and again with miserable remakes.

To take on A Christmas Carol would truly be an ambitious and dangerous project for any studio. A Christmas Carol holds a unique place in movie making history because successful versions of it exist from nearly every generation dating back almost 100 years.

If anyone could do it for a new generation, it would be the Walt Disney Company.

Enlisting the talents of Robert Zemeckis, who already has a Christmas epic to his credit in The Polar Express, coupled with composer Alan Silvestri who provides another inspired score, all the elements seem to be in place for another blockbuster.

But for all the money this version of A Christmas Carol will make it will not be another Christmas classic. As Ron Howard proved with his big screen version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas a heavily marketed Christmas movie does not necessarily a classic make. This movie will make money - but not achieve year-in-year-out viewing loyalty. It simply doesn't earn it.

Zemeckis is obsessed with the CGI technology that produced both The Polar Express and this newest rendition of A Christmas Carol. It provides unprecedented creative control and indeed the improvement in detail and flexibility between The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol is glaringly obvious. From the pores on Scrooge's nose to the stunning realism of 3-D rendered snowflakes A Christmas Carol is visual candy.

But the format allows for easy exaggeration and that is, ultimately, the hallmark and downfall of this version of A Christmas Carol.

It starts with the odd physical appearance of Scrooge with his impossibly long nose at times near touching his Leno-esque chin. What is visually overdone eventually leads to other elements that are likewise over-the-top - from the acting to the score to the incessant scenes of a screaming Scrooge zooming, falling and avoiding disaster.

Zemeckis, who adapted the story for the screen, seems to want it all. He remains stubbornly loyal to beloved dialogue but betrays that loyalty with buffoonery. Gary Oldman, brilliantly voicing the part of Jacob Marley, draws laughs when the napkin attached to his head comes off and he loses control of his mouth. What was moments before a terrifying dialogue between Marley and Scrooge is a now a mocking, hollow echo of a critical element of the story. It leaves the viewer wondering what kind of reaction to have - should we laugh at or pity Marley? Is he a ghost or merely an idiot? Are we watching A Christmas Carol or Dumb and Dumber?

The movie is filled with such viewing dilemmas. Scrooge's nephew Fred hails Christmas gloriously in one minute and callously calls Scrooge an ass the next - a clear deviation from Dicken's script and a crass, unnecessary chink in Fred's armor.

Where the flaws in the script exist they are overshadowed by the overexposure of Jim Carrey.

Carrey - with whom the public has a clear love-hate relationship - surprises in the early moments of the movie with his portrayal of Scrooge. The gaunt exaggeration of the animation is uniquely suited to Carrey's rubbery physical talents but in early moments it is in control. The subtlety in both voice and movement makes Scrooge, for as exaggerated as he is "drawn", believable and interesting.

But once Scrooge faces the Ghost of Christmas Past the movie clearly takes a turn for the worse.

Carrey is not an actor, he is a mimic. He is a comedian. He has proven, such as with The Truman Show, that if restrained he can pull off feeling moments. But when cut loose as he is in this film - as he was as the Grinch - he takes what is serious down to a juvenile level. And that simply cannot be done in a story held dear for going on two centuries. The Ghost of Christmas Past is too breathy, the Ghost of Christmas Present laughs like a loon and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come causes too many chase scenes. None of it works and it diminishes Carrey's good performance work as Scrooge. Having the Ghosts played by the same actor is an interesting idea that just isn't put together by Carrey.

For as wonderful as the visual elements are in this movie there are a number of headache-inducing scenes. Zemeckis takes an amateurish turn with constant zooming and crashing of the camera through 3-D objects. I also had a problem with perspective a number of times in the movie. Bob Cratchit is shorter than a ten year old and it is unnerving at times to watch him, whether it is when he is cowering from Scrooge or trying to receive a hug from one of his children.

Like Polar Express, there continues to be a soul-less quality to all characters in the film. Some of the facial detail lends to the problem. Scrooge is wonderfully craggy but the rotted teeth, pimples and comb-overs are, like many other elements, simply over done. What doesn't happen well enough to make the animation believable is in the eyes. In Polar Express they were simply black holes on human faces. It isn't as bad with A Christmas Carol but the fact that all characters are slow to blink and generally lack movement that matches around the eyes makes you would think every part is being played by Joan Rivers. It is a huge distraction.

A Christmas Carol is a ghost story and Zemeckis plays heavily on that theme. The film is too terrifying in parts for kids. I could never take my seven and nine year old to this movie with its prolonged exposure to multiple ghosts in chains and the constant falling from great heights. If you want to introduce Dickens to the kids, stick with the Muppets, who seem to have mastered the subtle line between drama and comedy in ways Zemeckis can't with this film.

The sad thing is that even if we didn't already know and love the story - having already endured and enjoyed several previous versions of it - this movie would still fail. And that is because Zemeckis misses the heart of the whole story. What the story mocks and criticizes - miserly greed, want and ignorance, for example - and what the story celebrates - redemption and forgiveness - gets overshadowed by glitz and gimmickry of this movie.

For moving making, on a technical level, this movie is art. For storytelling, for continuity in feeling and emotion, for conveyance of sentiment through the skillful writing of the original author and for pure heart and soul this movie rings hollow. A classic, the story is. A classic, this movie is not.