Spirited

Available on Apple TV+.

Sean Anders writes and directs this latest loose reworking of A Christmas Carol. The ghosts of Present (Will Ferrell), Past (Sunita Mani) and To-come (Loren G Woods and Tracy Morgan) are planning next year’s haunting. However, this one is a challenge an “Unredeemable” Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), someone beyond redemption, is the target and this is something that has only been tried once before. Briggs turns out to be as much of a challenge as the Ghosts and their boss Jacob Marley (Patrick Page) had feared. As the ghosts try to redeem him, he turns the tables on them, especially the ghost of Present. There are other complications for Present too as he meets Briggs head of media strategy Kimberly (Octavia Spencer) who makes him think of the life he never had. Will the ghosts manage to sing and dance their way to another successful redemption?

Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell and a musical reworking of A Christmas Carol, sounds fun in theory. Luckily in practice, it was as much fun as you’d expect and I mean that in a good way.

It’s more Scrooged than Scrooge and is a good successor to Bill Murray’s classic Christmas favourite. Ferrell and Reynolds, who so easily could have “dialled it in” fully embrace the silliness of the story and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the many song and dance routines, most of them work well and there’s a lot of fun to be had with the “good afternoon” song, which includes a wonderful if very brief cameo.

The two leads are well supported by the always reliable Octavia Spencer who also turns in some enjoyable musical performances of her own. The script zips along most of the time, although it does feel a bit baggy towards the end.

Spirited is as fun a romp as it sounds Reynolds and Ferrell energetically embrace the catchy song and dance numbers and deliver an entertaining play on the Christmas Carol story. A film that was as enjoyable as you’d hope and destined for plenty of future Christmas replays.