Most critics didn't like this update of the Dickens classic. Well, bah and humbug to the lot of them.

Though admittedly it could have been a lot better, the spirit of the original shines through the shallowness of some of the material, with Bill Murray ideally cast as the TV executive who has forsaken all others in the pursuance of his own career.

"You see anyone having fun here?" he snaps when told it's Christmas. No sympathy from him when his sick trailer for the network's seasonal presentation of Scrooge gives an old lady a fatal heart-attack.

Naturally the treatment here coarsens the original and has little of its character-building detail. And the ending, though emotive, is slightly strained.

Still there are good characters in the three ghosts, notably the ferocious cabbie who's the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the Ghost of Christmas Present in the shape of Carol Kane as a fairy with a mean right hook.

For all its glitzy effects, then, Scrooged still brings a traditional smile to our faces and a lump to our throats.