Scrooged (1988) Review

 

Scrooged (1988)

Scrooged follows Frank Cross, a Scrooge-like TV executive, who, after firing an employee on Christmas Eve, is visited by a series of ghosts who give him a chance to re-evaluate his actions and right the wrongs of his past.

In this modern retelling of Charles Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol, Scrooged takes 110% of Bill Murray’s loud, cynicism and cranks it to 11. The plot is quite how you expect, as with the hundreds of iterations of the story, just about all of them keep the story and spirit alive in the same fashion. Scrooged is no different, though it does add a nice meta twist in having A Christmas Carol as a story in this universe that is being adapted into a TV special for Frank’s network. Frank, naturally, is as mean as they come (more so than your usual Ebeneezer Scrooge type of character however) and thus, his meanness is the catalyst for his eventual change (instead of his lack of Christmas cheer). 

As we go through his life, led hand-in-hand by our three all-nonsense ghosts, we uncover the ups and downs of his life, but of course, it’s his future that shows him the error of his ways, as he dies alone and unloved, having changed Claire for the worse with would have been his final words to her. And so in the end, Frank comes out a cheery, changed man with a new, albeit louder, lease on life, still as egotistical as they come but a more caring man, who finally understands what Christmas is all about. 

We also get an electrifying cast, starring John Glover, John Forsythe, Alfre Woodard, Robert Mitchum, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane, Karen Allen, and Bill Murray. Coming off a 4 year hiatus after Ghostbusters, Murray proves to still be in top form, as I couldn’t dream up a more ‘Murray’ role than this, with him delivering a delightfully deadpan turn as the villainous Frank Cross, who is as evil as he is hilarious, creating for such a goofy transformation by movie’s end. 

Based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Scrooged, directed by Richard Donner, is a fast-paced, refreshingly mean-spirited adaption that maintains all of the spirit and redemption of Dicken’s classic, even ending with “Put A Little Love In Your Heart”, which in the end, isn't that what Charles Dickens meant to say that Christmas does all along?

8.6/10