"Scrooged" (1988) - Part 2

As I mentioned last time, I was disappointed in "Scrooged" (1988), the modern take on "A Christmas Carol" starring Bill Murray, upon its initial release. While keeping an open mind, I watched it again after all these years.

Has my opinion changed? Sadly, no. I still don't really care for it.

My main problem with it, then and now, is that I just think it's really unpleasant. I understand that Bill Murray's "Frank Cross" character is supposed to be somewhat "evil" as he needs to be reformed, but he's just so nasty and not all that funny. He gets off some good one-liners here and there - how could Bill Murray not - but there aren't enough of them and I think this is a comedy.

Early on, he makes a quip about scaring the Dickens out of people. OK, kinda funny, but he repeats it and says that nobody gets it. We do get it! It doesn't need to be hammered into the ground. That sets a weird tone to me.

Bill Murray's appeal at this point in his career was as a wiseguy who was sort above it all, conning everyone with fake sincerity. He's not like that here and I don't think he had developed the acting chops yet to be taken seriously.

His big speech at the end is weird and doesn't seem like any kind of redemption. I'm not sure if it's the script of if he's ad-libbing, but it just makes me scratch my head.

I think by the time "Groundhog Day" rolled around a few years later, Bill Murray was much better playing a jerky guy who was redeemed through supernatural forces. It also probably helped that the director of that movie was Harold Ramis, who had worked with Bill in the past and was perhaps more understanding of his style.

I've heard that Bill Murray clashed creatively with "Scrooged" director Richard Donner, which doesn't surprise me. Murray says he was directed to yell a lot and he certainly does that. I somehow feel like Donner was more interested in the special effects than anything else.

I do think that said special effects are way over the top in a very 1980s way. That was the decade of excess, right?

I also don't like the ghosts, especially Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present. She mainly is just causing bodily harm to Frank. I'm not sure what the point is and it's not funny at all. 

This movie seems to be somewhat polarizing, but there's no doubt what camp I'm in. And I can't be the only one who would rather have just been able to watch the version with Buddy Hackett as Scrooge!

Since that fictitious production is only incidental to this move, I don't really consider this to be an adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" and I certainly don't consider Bill Murray to be playing Scrooge.