What kid growing up from the late 80s and early 2000s hasn't heard or read this book. It has a timeless moral; beautiful illustrations that were imaginative, atmospheric and drenching with Christmas visuals; and a nice laid back tone that made you feel at eased, while you still felt like you were on this train ride to the North Pole through the writing and pictures. It's truly one of those children's books that stand the test of the time and makes you feel like a kid whenever you read it, as you embrace its Christmas spirit. And since the story was cherished just as much as Christmas tales like "The Grinch", "Twas The Night Before Christmas", and " A Christmas Carol" were, in 2004 director Robert Zemeckis who gave us many classics like "Back To The Future", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and "Forrest Gump", felt that it was time to adapt the story. Only instead of it being filmed in live action, it would instead be animated with the use of CGI and motion capture.
I saw the film in theaters when I was in 5th grade, and I remember enjoying it ok, and watching it occasionally over the years. But after not seeing it for quite awhile, was it really as good as I remember it; ON WITH THE REVIEW!
A young boy who's getting to the point in his life where he has trouble believing in Santa, sees a magical train pull up in front of his house in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. The train's conductor tells the boy that the train is heading to the North Pole, and invites the boy to come along for the ride. The boy (who by the way has no name) hops aboard the train and makes friends with some of the kids as he embarks on a magical journey to the land where Santa and his Elves live. Now as tempted as I am to compare the movie to the book, since I usually judge a film on its merits since they're both different mediums of entertainment, I'm going to give this film the same fair chance.
I suppose the best place to start when reviewing this movie is the motion capture animation that everybody seems to hate or admire. I personally am kind of mixed about it. On one hand it is at times looks impressive for how realistic the character’s expressions and movements look, where they seem more natural than the motion capture for something like the Halloween TV Special "Night Of The Headless Horseman". But there are still a good amount of times where they look creepy for how unnatural and stiff their expressions and movements are at times. There are scenes where they move like how the actors would in real life, but there are plenty of over the top cartoony moments that break as much physics as a "Looney Tunes" cartoon would, where the two just don't jell together too well. It overall feels like Zemeckis doesn't know if he wants to make a live action Christmas film because of how realistic he wants the animation to look, as you wonder why he just doesn't shoot this film in live action; or if he wants to make a Christmas cartoon, where find yourself asking why bother making it look realistic with the motion capture animation, and not let the animators go all out creative like they usually do since they're too busy copying the majority of the movements and expressions from the actors. It's a bit of a mess, and to me I would have been more happy with the idea if the film was just filmed in live action with the use of real actors and CGI for half of the effects, as the other half of the effects are practical, kind of like the "Harry Potter" or "The Lord Of The Rings" movies for example, which would also make the film look less creepy. But as much as I think the film would work better in live action, the film’s animation does have a gigantic size, scale, and weight to it from the way they're shot, animated, and paced, as we look at some beautiful Christmas colors and imaginative landscapes while hearing an extraordinary Christmas score by Alan Silvestri (even if it does sound at times sound a little to similar to the music in "Elf") that all give the film such a heavy atmosphere as if you were going on for the ride with the characters. I remember that when the film first came out it was also being released in IMAX 3-D (at a time where releasing films in 3-D wasn't as common as it is now), where I was curious in seeing the film in three dimension, but instead I had to settle for seeing it at my local town movie theater. And whenever I watch this film, I always find myself imagining how epic it would look to see all these grand visuals on the big screen in 3-D with a huge sound system to make you really feel like you're on the journey which would make the film feel like an experience than just a movie, almost like how I dream about seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" on the big screen in IMAX (just without the added in 3-D effect). Sure I would have to look at some creepy motion capture animation for a good chunk of the time, but honestly it isn't all that scary. At least not scary enough to warrant nightmare fuel as many other critics have claimed.
The film's primary star is academy award winning actor Tom Hanks who has previously worked with Zemeckis in classic films like "Forrest Gump" and "Cast Away", who plays a wide variety of characters in the film such as the conductor, a magical hobo, the boy's Father, the narrator, Santa Claus, and even serves as the motion-capture for our young protagonist. I love Tom Hanks; I think he's a great well rounded actor, who can do both comedy and hardcore drama to a tee! And I do find it cool that he's given a wide variety of characters to play. But aside from the motion-capture that he provides for the boy, his voice and mannerisms are so distinctive that I can never see the characters he plays as separate characters since its clearly obvious that its Hanks playing them all, which comes across as distracting and kind of takes you out of that magical environment when you constantly acknowledge that these different fantasy characters that the boy meets are mostly played by Tom Hanks. Even as a kid I found myself a bit distracted by it. I am aware that the reason for this casting choice is because each character played by Hanks is supposed to represent the Holy Trinity to help the kid's faith in his beliefs in Santa Claus, with Santa being god, the Conductor being Jesus to help lead the kid down the right path, and the mystical Hobo being the Holy Ghost, which is a clever concept, that in a way makes this film a modern day Christmas Carol considering that three magical characters are trying to help change the boy for the better. But since they are supposed to be their own individual characters it still comes across as distracting.
On top of the obvious casting of Hanks playing these different roles, out of all characters that he portrays, the one who I felt the least enchanted by is the conductor for how strict he is as a host. For the majority of his on-screen appearance he's always shown to be yelling, looking frustrated, and acting a bit snobbish at times. And I get that he overall means well, is very understanding, and that dealing with a train full of children is no easy task. But I hardly felt a welcoming or gentle presence whenever I'm around him since he always seems like he's going to crack at any second. He even at times comes across as a tad bit creepy, especially when he quietly tells the kid that he should hop aboard the train as if he was a pervert telling a kid to get inside his van. I didn't even find him that fun to watch either. And I know that there are other fantasy characters like the conductor that try to help a protagonist in a children’s film who can be harsh and weird like Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder one of course) or Mary Poppins for example. But they still came across as characters that were interesting and charming, despite coming off as odd and rude at times. With the Conductor on the other hand I didn't find him that intriguing of a character, or anywhere near charming, especially since I know I'm watching Tom Hanks putting on a performance, when with Gene Wilder and Julie Andrews I see them strictly as the characters. I won't go far to say that he's a horrible character, or that Hank's performance isn't entertaining, but let's say that I wouldn't consider myself going on a magical life changing journey with someone who's always constantly yelling and glaring at me weird with those dead CGI eyes.
The character that Tom Hanks' played who I did enjoy spending time with is the hobo. He to me comes across as a more fun, interesting, and inviting character than the Conductor is. He can be over the top and cartoony, but he can also be subtle and laid-back. He'll say and do a few negative things to the kid regarding his belief in Santa, but you get the impression that's he's just using his negativity to test the kid’s faith as if he knows the answer to the kid’s question all along. And despite that we know little about this hobo, like what exactly he is, or why he doesn't believe in Santa despite that he's riding on a magical train to the North Pole, that’s what overall makes him such a fascinating character. Hank's performance as this mystical wisecracking bum was also the closest out of all the other character's he's played where I hardly sensed him just putting on a performance, even though I clearly know its still him. I'd much rather sneak aboard the Polar Express with this guy showing me around the train and testing my beliefs, as opposed to feeling intimidated every time the conductor walks in.
The group of kids who we experience the journey with; they're for the most part not that charming or all that interesting of characters. The lead boy as basic of a character as he is, Daryl Sabara's voice acting with Hanks' motion capture are good enough for us to relate and identify with what he's going through with his troubles of keeping his faith. But the other kids just come across as bland generic stereotypes that we've seen before who are hardly ever intriguing. The little girl who loves Christmas (voiced by Nona Gaye) is annoyingly as pitch perfect as a character can get. The poor kid Billy (with Peter Scolari motion-capture and Jimmy Bennett's voice) just feels there. And the nerdy kid (voiced by Eddie Deezen that's playing his usual nerdy self) is just a forced comic relief character who isn't funny, and hearing a grown man's voice coming out of an animated kid who's supposed to look as realistic as a kid in real life just comes across as weird and distracting, where I wish they would just throw Mandark from "Dexter's Laboratory" in his place since he's an animated boy who's not meant to be animated like a real life child and made to look like A CARTOON! Much like how I feel about Tom Hanks as the conductor, the kids supporting our lead are tolerable enough to get through the film, but they still stink as characters for how one note they are.
While I'm on the topic of discussing the kids, there was a
great idea that I thought the film was going for that just felt completely
wasted. When the kid has doubts about entering the train, the conductor pulls
out a sheet of paper that list the things he didn't do when taking part in the
Christmas traditions involving Santa as a way to convince him to climb aboard
to help him keep on believing. And the next person that the Polar Express picks
up is a kid who has clearly given up on Christmas because of the poor
conditions he lives in. At first I thought the idea for the Polar Express was
to bring kids who have lost the spirit of Christmas, or are at the age of their
life where they stop believing in Santa and magic, where the trip will give
them one more chance for them to try and keep the faith before they go their
own way if they'll keep believing and cherishing the spirit of Christmas or
not, which I thought was an ingenious idea. But it unfortunately turns out to
not be the case. The train is just picking up random kids who seem to be all
from the same the town whether or not they believe which I thought was a
complete missed opportunity. It would've been such a unique concept.
The rest of the cast of magical characters that we meet in the film are pretty much just the Elves and the train's engineer and fireman Smokey and Steamer. As decent as the Elves designs are, they come across as a bunch of nasty little turds. They aren't jolly, they're incredibly rude and obnoxious, and at times look and act kind of scary. The last word that ever comes to my mind when I think of these little creatures is cute. And it doesn't help either when they shoehorn in a painfully out of place cameo appearance of Steven Tyler from "Aerosmith" as an Elf singing rock songs to dancing Elves. I love Steven Tyler, I love "Aerosmith", but his cameo in the film is just as cringe worthy and stupid as seeing Dan Aykroyd as the "Ghostbuster" Ray Stantz in "Casper". Smokey and Steamer are clearly a set of pointless extra of comic-relief characters that the film isn't really yearning for. But they are fun to watch, who provide a few good laughs, and after noticing every single role that Tom Hanks plays in the film, I never would have suspected that these two characters are not only played by one guy, but are also played by the late and great Michael Jeter in his last performance of his career. Maybe the film should've starred him instead of Hanks.
Another major problem that I noticed with the film is that there a lot of scenes of filler. Scenes like the boy losing the girl's ticket, the train almost crashing, and the kids getting lost in Santa's Workshop, give you the feeling that the film is trying to cram a few pointless obstacles as an excuse to lengthen the film to an hour and a half, and show off its animation and 3-D effects. I mean really, how many roller-coaster simulation scenes do we see in this movie? Why do we get a whole sequence dedicated to a ticket flying around when it will eventually go back inside the train? And why do the train-tracks lead to a frozen pond and a steep mountain that has danger written all over it? The film also has a pointless scary moment where a Scrooge puppet comes to life to scare the boy, that doesn't even come close to scary either since we quickly find out that the bum is controlling the puppet which makes the scene come across as comical instead. But as plain as it is that these scenes are only in the film to make it longer, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy some of them, or in the very least don't see why other people might enjoy them. The scenes with the runaway ticket and runaway train are part of what makes the film feel likes an experience thanks to its animation. The city where the Elves live and how they work is cool to explore. And I do like the grim concept and tone for the room where the broken toys and puppets are (which if you look carefully you can see some of the toys in the room appear in the last scene of the film). They are pointless detours that really stand out to me, but I guess that's all part of the film's experience.
What I do think are the most painfully forced moments in the film that feel incredibly awkward and out of the blue are the song scenes. There's only two musical numbers in the whole movie, and these songs come and go just as quickly as the songs in "The Nutcracker: The Untold Story" as you start to wonder if these songs were even worth being shoved in. Ok the "Hot Chocolate" song with the dancing waiters, as incredibly random as that scene is, the animation and motion-capture is still impressive for how fast, energetic, and visually heavy it is. And the song itself is kind of catchy. But the song that the girl and the lonely boy sing on the train together as they gaze at the auroras is clearly the most contrived one out of the two. The song is generic, and forgettable. How the song just suddenly happens is unbelievably corny. And the visuals for the auroras as pretty as they are, almost feel like they're trying to be as forcefully whimsical as the song is, especially when we see presents in the sky. I just get the impression that this song was only thrown into film so that it can eventually be a hit Christmas single that we'd hear on radio stations constantly during the holiday season's like "Where Are You Christmas" from "The Grinch" (that I still think is a boring Christmas song) since the scene is trying to be all cute and touching! I can understand why many other people may be touched by that song, but for me it just comes across as manipulative.
On the whole I don't think the film is the Christmas masterpiece that audiences have claimed it to be, but I don't think it's as terrible as other people have made it out to be either. Nearly everything that the film has to offer is pretty much hit and miss, where the majority of scenes and characters are hammered in to give the film a longer run time and play on the Holiday tropes that Christmas films and Specials are known for just to please us, as we look at motion-capture that can at times look impressive and freaky. But as clumsy as the film is, there is an overall feeling that there was a lot of heart and effort being put into the movie. You can tell that Zemeckis was trying really hard to capture the spirit of a timeless Christmas tale, even if the final product doesn't stand as tall. Maybe if the story was adapted as a 30 minute short cartoon like how "The Grinch" and "The Snowman" were, it could've been just as beautiful and timeless. But for what it is, it's not that bad. I do like watching it every now and then during the holiday season for the things that are good, and if IMAX ever decides to re-release the film in 3-D, I will definitely purchase a ticket to see the film the way that it's supposed to be seen.
RATING 3/5
The rest of the cast of magical characters that we meet in the film are pretty much just the Elves and the train's engineer and fireman Smokey and Steamer. As decent as the Elves designs are, they come across as a bunch of nasty little turds. They aren't jolly, they're incredibly rude and obnoxious, and at times look and act kind of scary. The last word that ever comes to my mind when I think of these little creatures is cute. And it doesn't help either when they shoehorn in a painfully out of place cameo appearance of Steven Tyler from "Aerosmith" as an Elf singing rock songs to dancing Elves. I love Steven Tyler, I love "Aerosmith", but his cameo in the film is just as cringe worthy and stupid as seeing Dan Aykroyd as the "Ghostbuster" Ray Stantz in "Casper". Smokey and Steamer are clearly a set of pointless extra of comic-relief characters that the film isn't really yearning for. But they are fun to watch, who provide a few good laughs, and after noticing every single role that Tom Hanks plays in the film, I never would have suspected that these two characters are not only played by one guy, but are also played by the late and great Michael Jeter in his last performance of his career. Maybe the film should've starred him instead of Hanks.
Another major problem that I noticed with the film is that there a lot of scenes of filler. Scenes like the boy losing the girl's ticket, the train almost crashing, and the kids getting lost in Santa's Workshop, give you the feeling that the film is trying to cram a few pointless obstacles as an excuse to lengthen the film to an hour and a half, and show off its animation and 3-D effects. I mean really, how many roller-coaster simulation scenes do we see in this movie? Why do we get a whole sequence dedicated to a ticket flying around when it will eventually go back inside the train? And why do the train-tracks lead to a frozen pond and a steep mountain that has danger written all over it? The film also has a pointless scary moment where a Scrooge puppet comes to life to scare the boy, that doesn't even come close to scary either since we quickly find out that the bum is controlling the puppet which makes the scene come across as comical instead. But as plain as it is that these scenes are only in the film to make it longer, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy some of them, or in the very least don't see why other people might enjoy them. The scenes with the runaway ticket and runaway train are part of what makes the film feel likes an experience thanks to its animation. The city where the Elves live and how they work is cool to explore. And I do like the grim concept and tone for the room where the broken toys and puppets are (which if you look carefully you can see some of the toys in the room appear in the last scene of the film). They are pointless detours that really stand out to me, but I guess that's all part of the film's experience.
What I do think are the most painfully forced moments in the film that feel incredibly awkward and out of the blue are the song scenes. There's only two musical numbers in the whole movie, and these songs come and go just as quickly as the songs in "The Nutcracker: The Untold Story" as you start to wonder if these songs were even worth being shoved in. Ok the "Hot Chocolate" song with the dancing waiters, as incredibly random as that scene is, the animation and motion-capture is still impressive for how fast, energetic, and visually heavy it is. And the song itself is kind of catchy. But the song that the girl and the lonely boy sing on the train together as they gaze at the auroras is clearly the most contrived one out of the two. The song is generic, and forgettable. How the song just suddenly happens is unbelievably corny. And the visuals for the auroras as pretty as they are, almost feel like they're trying to be as forcefully whimsical as the song is, especially when we see presents in the sky. I just get the impression that this song was only thrown into film so that it can eventually be a hit Christmas single that we'd hear on radio stations constantly during the holiday season's like "Where Are You Christmas" from "The Grinch" (that I still think is a boring Christmas song) since the scene is trying to be all cute and touching! I can understand why many other people may be touched by that song, but for me it just comes across as manipulative.
On the whole I don't think the film is the Christmas masterpiece that audiences have claimed it to be, but I don't think it's as terrible as other people have made it out to be either. Nearly everything that the film has to offer is pretty much hit and miss, where the majority of scenes and characters are hammered in to give the film a longer run time and play on the Holiday tropes that Christmas films and Specials are known for just to please us, as we look at motion-capture that can at times look impressive and freaky. But as clumsy as the film is, there is an overall feeling that there was a lot of heart and effort being put into the movie. You can tell that Zemeckis was trying really hard to capture the spirit of a timeless Christmas tale, even if the final product doesn't stand as tall. Maybe if the story was adapted as a 30 minute short cartoon like how "The Grinch" and "The Snowman" were, it could've been just as beautiful and timeless. But for what it is, it's not that bad. I do like watching it every now and then during the holiday season for the things that are good, and if IMAX ever decides to re-release the film in 3-D, I will definitely purchase a ticket to see the film the way that it's supposed to be seen.
RATING 3/5
Great read thankk you
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