A Christmas Carol Japanese Trailer, With New Footage And A Ghost Story Tone

There's a new Japanese trailer for A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey. But this clip, which uses quite a bit of new footage, is wildly different from the US trailers. Notably, it appears to be advertising a movie I might actually want to see.

Essentially, this trailer downplays the slapstick elements that are highlighted in the last full US trailer. Instead, there's more of an air of mystery and melancholy, with an emphasis on Scrooge's growing disquiet as he sees the truth about his existence. Which is to say this isn't two minutes of animated Jim Carrey screaming as he flies through the air, slides down a pipe and rides an icicle along a rooftop.

So which movie is A Christmas Carol really going to be — the Miyazaki-ish folk tale implied by this new trailer, or the slapstick adventure promised in the US one? Probably the latter, as Disney has described the film as (ahem) "a multi-sensory thrill ride re-envisioned by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis," that captures "the fantastical essence of the classic Dickens tale in a groundbreaking 3D motion picture event." Sorry Japan, looks like you're getting screwed on this one.

And while I've looked at all the previous materials for this movie and just thought, "nope, not a film for me," I do have to say the quality of the animation here looks pretty great. There are some really lovely little moments where you can see how performance capture has really moved forward from what Zemeckis offered with Beowulf. (And it's light years beyond the horrifying Polar Express.) Not that it makes the film seem any more palatable to me, but I can see how in a few years Zemeckis might make a film like this that really, unequivocably works, and I'll be ready to see it. [via ComingSoon]