Featuring the voices of Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, and Bob Hoskins. Rated G. Opens Friday, November 6, at the Park Theatre

It’s hard to imagine what Charles Dickens might have made of Robert Zemeckis’s new rendition of his most famous work. The movie’s strange mash-up of Victorian Christmas-card treacle with horror FX and theme-park-ride gimmicks has been retooled for the Red Bull–addled generation.

It’s not like the story is sacred anymore. Kermit the Frog, Bill Murray, Black Adder, and even Michael Moore–hating right-wingers (whose American Carol is easily the most offensive rendition) have had their way with it.

What’s odd about A Christmas Carol, though, is that it seems to want to be faithful to Dickens’s 1843 novella, sticking closely to its text. In fact, its biggest surprise is that Jim Carrey—the man once dubbed Canada’s rubber-faced fartsmith—credibly pulls the script off, voicing both Scrooge and the ghosts who terrorize him. But while Zemeckis is busy cranking up the 3-D thrills, he fails to tap the story’s moving heart.

A big reason is that Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, who have reduced many generations to tears, become side notes to the spectacle. And Zemeckis’s beloved live-capture animation, though it can magnify the hairs down Scrooge’s red beak and the cracks in his brown teeth, deadens the eyes and gestures of its characters—just like it did in The Polar Express.

As for the scarier CG effects, Dickens’s original story does go to the darkest corners of a man’s soul—though a decomposing Marley ghost that hollers so loud his jaw rips open and a few other choice moments will send smaller viewers lured by fun-looking trailers into trauma counselling.

For my money, it all comes down to the doorknocker scene. In Alistair Sims’s still-tops black-and-white classic, just a glimpse of the shadows of Marley’s face in it was chilling enough. Here, it becomes a screeching Ghostbusters-gone-bad explosion of neon-green ectoplasm.

Sometimes, less really is more. I can see the signs at Disneyland already—Scrooge: The Ride.