There have been dozens of film adaptations of the classic Charles Dickens’ 1843 story, A Christmas Carol. Disney is at it again with Robert Zemeckis and Jim Carrey in the first Disney Digital 3D version of the tale. So how does it stack up to all the others out there?

A Christmas Carol follows the crooked old miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Carrey) as he continues to live his life enveloped with greed. It’s Christmas Eve, and once again Scrooge plans to enjoy none of it. Fate, however, has other plans in store.

Scrooge is to be visited by three ghosts; the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. They will show him how the rest of the world sees him in the hopes that he will change his ways before it’s too late.

The film is presented using a mixture of animation and performance capture, much in the same way as Polar Express and Beowulf. This makes for a much more realistic, although creepier, version of the story. The facial expressions and movements of the characters bring them to life like no other animation has.

Probably the most disturbing of them is the Ghost of Christmas Past, voiced by Jim Carrey as well. The ghost is portrayed much like Dickens’ original concept as an androgynous being with a flame surrounding its head, much like a candle. The soft and eerie tone of his voice is enough to spook kids and adults alike.

The 3D is some of the best I’ve seen. Disney has really gotten the hang of the technology and it’s finally beginning to show in their films. Rather than tying specific scenes to focus on 3D aspects, the entire film utilizes the technology throughout. Individual snowflakes appear right in front of your face, ghosts reach out to grab you, and vast landscapes have depth and structure to them.

Even with the large number of Christmas Carol adaptations out there, of which Disney has three now, Zemeckis manages to bring the story to life once more while still keeping things fresh. If you're not in the Christmas spirit yet, you will be be by the end of the film.