Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 39
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 14
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 3.8/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 72,681
A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer
Nov 23, 1988 Wide
Nov 9, 1999
Paramount Pictures
All Critics (39) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (28) | Rotten (15) | DVD (14)
Tacky in the extreme, this self-congratulatory 1988 film is an exercise in hypocrisy, indulging every form of Christmas exploitation that it pretends to attack, and many of the laughs are forced.
An appallingly unfunny comedy, and a vivid illustration of the fact that money can't buy you laughs.
In spite of the jokes at the expense of television-network censors, there's very little in the film, aside from naughty words, that wouldn't be perfectly acceptable on prime-time television.
This is not a 'good movie' -- in fact, it's a sprawling mess -- but I like it.
It was obviously intended as a comedy, but there is little comic about it, and indeed the movie's overriding emotions seem to be pain and anger.
If Donner and his team had any interest in the story's message, they've picked a puzzling way to show it.
Bill Murray in a satiric send-up of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' is too good to pass up. (Blu-ray edition)
It's got Bill Murray, and that's always a good thing.
Dated comedy is part Ghostbusters, part Dickens.
A meaningful Christmas Carol this is not, but a perfectly entertaining yuletide comedy this certainly is.
Bill Murray is the one of the greatest screen Scrooges in this 1980s updating.
A number of talented actors appear, but only a few are able to make much of a mark given their limited screentime.
Frequently funny take on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" with Murray learning a lesson.
Rowdy stuff for the light in head.
I found much of this irreverent modernization of A Christmas Carol to be hilarious, and I commend Murray and director Donner for giving their film a sardonic edge.
A roaring good time.
I saw this during a brief visit to Germany and it really helped things suck less. Possibly even funnier dubbed in incomprehensible German.
Charles Dicken's classic has gotten more than a few treatments over the years. I'm willing to be that there's a statistic out there that in some way shape or form, "A Christmas Carol" is the most adapted to television and film novel of all time. There are an ungodly number of these films. So, why would an obscure Bill
December 13, 2011Super Reviewer
Lew Hayward: I don't mind you shooting at me, Frank, but take it easy on the Bacardi."The spirits will move you in odd and hysterical ways."Scrooged is at times funny, but not as funny as it needs to be, or as funny as I expected it to be. Still I managed to get a certain satisfaction out of watching Bill Murray play
December 7, 2011
Super Reviewer
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