Rolling, Rolling, Rolling Down an Ice Sheet.

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2004)

All-world film director Robert Zemeckis goes the animated feature route here with this highly interesting, but ultimately under-achieving little holiday picture. A young boy and a group of other children are invited to ride the titled vehicle as they all try to hold on to the belief that there really is a Santa Claus. An achingly simple and pretentious story-line with ho-hum cinematic executions almost sinks the landmark animation and articulate technological innovations. Tom Hanks tries his best by playing the voices to no fewer than five characters, but all the parts are so flat and under-developed that their three dimensional forms seem almost pedestrian. The character generation imagery is so life-like that it toes the line on being down-right spooky and even a bit disturbing. Fine effort and still a noble work, but really this had the potential to be lots more than it actually is. 4 stars out of 5.