Film scholars widely agree that 1939 remains the strongest year ever for American movies. But I'm starting to think that, as the decades pass, 2009 might be seen as a comparable year for animated movies.
For the most part, Disney's A Christmas Carol - the third of director Robert Zemeckis' features to employ the process of performance-capture animation - is a strong, serious, stunningly well-designed piece of work, and an unexpectedly resonant take on Charles Dickens' holiday classic. But I do feel compelled to ask Mr. Zemeckis a question: Must everything be transformed into a Hollywood thrill ride?
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