Loud, creepy, horrifying

Rating: 3/10 (6 December 2004)

Against my better judgment my three-year-old son was taken to see The Polar Express this weekend.
Five minutes into the movie he screamed and begged to go home. And he's not a particularly cowardly toddler.
This G-rated movie is incredibly LOUD, violently kinetic, and a total sensory overload - completely inappropriate for young children. I got to see the rest of the movie after my son was taken home, and time after time I was amazed by scenes that were far more frightening than the one that first terrified my boy. He'd never have made it through without major trauma.
Perhaps a five-year-old could handle it - but they would have to be pretty desensitized.
For myself, the virtual actors were creepy, the elves at the North Pole scenes were disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi propaganda films, and the writing was disappointingly poor. The whole thing felt like a very deliberate, cynical attempt to manufacture a Christmas classic, but throughout the movie it was impossible to miss the set-ups for future roller-coaster theme rides and products.
Why does Hollywood feel it necessary to blast moviegoers into insensibility? And why, why, WHY don't they understand that good writing is the core of a movie? The television version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" was wonderful and heartwarming. The atrocity that was Jim Carrey's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was just awful. Why? Writing, more than anything. That, and the apparent belief that loud sounds and abundant special effects are all that's needed to make a good movie.
People in Hollywood need to be chained into a theater showing all the incredible, well-written movies made without seat-shaking audio and computer-generated effects: movies like Casablanca, The Third Man, A Christmas Story, and even relatively lowbrow (but well-written) movies like Used Cars. But of course, Roger Zemekis directed and CO-WROTE Used Cars. What happened? What's his excuse for The Polar Express?