charmless, noisy, and frightening for young children

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2005)

In summary, if you have young children this will scare them, if you have older children they'll think its uncool and/or boring (take your pick. As an adult I found it charmless, unengaging, and inconsistent in its approach.
It could have been so much better if the people who made it had thought about the target audience a bit more. It seems to be aimed at younger children yet is very scary for them, my two boys are aged 4 and 7 and they were both scared and wanted to leave. I've also spoken to a few other people who've taken young children to see it they said much the same thing.
When things start to go 'wrong' the whole tone of the film becomes frightening. E.g. when the train starts going very fast the music gets very ominous and the children in the film start screaming, if the music was more 'fun' and the kids started to scream with delight the whole thing could have become enjoyable.
The animation is strange too - the movements are realistic but the faces have an eerily 'wooden' look to them and the overall effect is more like watching a creepy horror film full of zombies than one of children on a magical voyage.
The character on the roof of the train is just downright creepy and i cant see how he (it?) is supposed to fit into a children's film.