One More Time, with Feeling

Rating: 5/10 (22 November 2004)

Having seen "The Polar Express" with my family this past weekend, I was left with several impressions. First, the negative: CGi works well on backgrounds, much less so on human beings; some characters were monstrous; The North Pole cityscape looked more like Poland during the war than "Christmastown"; the sound was too loud; the movie would have benefited greatly without the new characters and a shorter running time; some voice talents were totally miscast; the mood of the film is too bleak for young children. On the positive: there's some memorable songs; fantastic use of color; a faithfulness to the illustrations of the Chris Van Allsburg book ( which is the main reason the producers chose to render the entire film in CGi ); breathtaking nature scenes; a real kinetic energy; most of the children seemed to love it  which is the point, really  after all, it IS a movie designed for children.
Consider the source material: I find the book rather bleak in itself.
For me, it's one of Allsburg's lesser writes, though it's not void of charm. It should be for older children who are on the cusp of that basic level of maturity that questions the less logical aspects of life. That age group surely has graduated from pictures books. Or is it more a book for the precocious six year old who's unfortunately been informed by another less impressionable child that Santa Claus isn't real? Which is it? I'll guess the latter is probably the closest to the author's target. If true, the likely truth is that those children are in the minority, and the book's main fault is that it attracts an audience too wide than it's intended audience.
Which is why the movie also is awkward in its approach to Christmas. Children see the Rankin/Bass productions on TV, then see "The Polar Express" and begin to think, "Gee, is The North Pole REALLY like that?" This modern depiction of The North Pole is a quantum leap from those old TV shows. I suppose that all these disparate depictions of The North Pole only fuel children's suspicions. Children thrive on familiarity, and The North Pole has been depicted, up to this point, thousands of ways. It's no wonder they start to question everything! The CGi people come off weird, unnatural and sometimes downright frightening. Remember that movie "Westworld"? You've got it! I think the better idea would have been placing live actors in the backgrounds, as in "Mary Poppins". The charm factor would have been ratcheted way up. Why wasn't this done? Supposedly the director didn't want to bother with child actors. Huh?!? How can one get that childhood feeling while being surrounded mostly by adults during the production? "One more time, with feeling." As for the volume, all movies are too loud today. But the sudden noises and decibel level are totally inappropriate for this film. If I were a kid and saw this movie, I'd be treated to nightmares at bedtime.
What did my six year old think? She loved it! Mostly she loved the train scenes where the movie show the workings of the train and the amazing speeds of which it's capable. Which is the weakness of my review  most kids loved this movie. But some younger children were scared by it. What  Christmas scary? Leave that to "A Christmas Carol", which is NOT for young kids! WHY toddlers were brought in to see this at our viewing is indicative of the lack of natural feeling people seem to exhibit nowadays. Have we really gotten so desensitized that ideas and common sense have to be bludgeoned into our minds? So, proceed with caution.
Cheers: Beautiful backgrounds; breathtaking nature scenes; some good songs; a movie that really moves; fascinating animation; faithful to the book; teaches that faith is important in life; a crowd-pleaser.
Caveats: Scary characters; too loud; bleak; awkward; animated dead people; too long; way too intense for impressionable five year-olds.
Match, cut.