Johnny Depp is trying to come back into mainstream cinema (he was in other, less distributed films like Waiting For The Barbarians before the Depp V. Heard trial), and while there’s literaly no space in this format to tackle the issue with any nuance…. it’s just so obvious how this film really exists mostly to that end, he wants to rehabilitate his public image so let’s play it supersafe, by doing A Christmas Carol adaptation, directed by grindhouse horror renowed Ti West.

…. Sure, why not? Why yes, also, but whatever, you got my attention.

While the pitch – as the title implies – is how this is supposed to be an Ebenezer Scrooge focused story…. this always was his story, it actually trsanslate this adaptation being more faithful to the book and reintegrating some parts of the novel, giving Ebenezer a backstory… which is done to differentiate this version and make people symphatize with him, even if in doing so it – almost – reverses the whole point of the story.

It fares better hiring a horror director to push the creepy aspects of the story, West does well in this regard, as well as the PG13 (and the subject matter) allows, and this time it is by design, unlike the accidental uncanniness of the Zemeckis mocap animation seen in the 2009 Jim Carrey version.

Frrankly, its better than i thought this would be, it’s decent, but it’s obvious it exists just to serve as a vehicle for Depp…. and look, this far from Depp’s worse performance, he’s decent enough as Scrooge, but its just oh so telling how he is notably outclassed by Ian McKellen kinda halfassing it as Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s old business partner, an actually important character, but one often omitted in recent adaptations, and has little screen time even here.