Manipultive and with an overriding issue of visuals over all else; the film has, admittedly, a child-like enthusiasm difficult to brush off but it's all fairly pedestrian.

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2011)

It is difficult not to pencil The Polar Express in as more style and effects over substance; but boy, what style and effects it's got. Witness, if you will, the sequence signalling the end of the film's set-up and systematic commencement of the protagonist's journey proper; a sequence following that of a magical steam train whisking it's way down into a suburban street and then off again once the formalities have been taken care of. Witness the way in which the many windows to the many carriages wonderfully sync up with the ground as it slowly chugs away from the curb as if it were leaving a station; the way the bright golds radiating from the lighting within each carriage to each window reflects onto the brilliant white lawns covered in heavy snow, each yellow rectangle sticking in perfect tandem as it moves off. Never mind the meetings with Santa Claus and never mind the "state of the art" motion capture technology on show throughout, the true beauty of this 2004 piece lies not with the residing characteristics of the beast nor the places it goes, but with the more simplistic little 'events' or 'happenings' such as the aforementioned examples. Therein lie the reasons to feel both good and at-once apprehensive about the film, a film all but indebted to its special effects and therefore often feeling the need to fall back on the sheer spectacle of the world it's depicting so as to get across the sense we've actually gone somewhere.
The film was directed by a certain Robert Zemeckis, whose 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a crisp example of how effects can create a world around a central character's plight whilst complimenting the central tract rather than draw attention away from it. Tom Hanks voices a young boy living in a rich American neighbourhood somewhere in the 1950's , a kid with a loving family; a big house and a little sister. The young boy is growing up, and reading of mall based Santa's striking in the newspapers as well as discovering nuggets of information that places such as The North Pole cannot harbour human beings, his belief in the man is on the slope downwards. Late on Christmas Eve, another Hanks character, on board the titular Polar Express, whooshes down and parks outside the young boy's house – next stop: The North Pole, in what is an attempt by those on the other side to re-instill belief.
In essence, that is as advanced it gets in terms of narrative; the film easing into a grove driven solely by the special effects of getting there and then briefly staying there before completing the circular journey and arriving back to a warm Christmas morning. Along the way, one of the characters has no ticket; the train itself does not have any breaks, it conks out on one occasion and there is an uncanny interaction with a homeless gentleman. There are a number of other kids on board, with them arriving this bizarre class tract to do with people from varying class levels all occupying different class compartments, but each coming together at the end as one happy congregation occupying the same realm, even those of whom come from "the wrong side of the tracks". Zemeckis takes the opportunity in working with this technology to recreate certain sequences from his past work, one of which is lifted from Forrest Gump but sees a feather replaced by one of those aforementioned tickets, and he even finds time to pay reference to the daring train cart negotiating that made up the finale of Back to the Future: Part III - complete with "I've always wanted to do that!" line once in the engine proper. They do nothing but have us wish we were watching those films instead.
Nearer the end of the journey there is a steep drop in the tracks resulting in the train snowballing downhill, something shot from the very front of the vehicle and instilling this unnecessary roller-coaster aesthetic to proceedings reiterating what little it lacks in most film making departments but excels at in terms of spectacle. For the final final act, the train arrives in The North Pole to a pastiche of that Christmas-time Coca Cola advertisement you get on televisions. Then, it is revealed Santa's workshop is run by elves who sound like they've seen one too many New York City-set gangster movies and, in a creepy turn, have these tiny video cameras in the bedrooms of each kid in the world so as to check on bad behaviour. Admittedly, the 'permanant record' idea is good value and the big spinning globe allowing you access it all is neat.
One is tempted to compare it to the likes of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, or indeed James Cameron's more recent Avatar; films of which did not exist until the time in which they did due to the unavailability of the technology at hand required to build the worlds envisaged. Had one attempted to produce the film twenty or so years previously, the effects will often have looked stodgy; but if they were backed up by narrative and characterisation, those would be the limits of people's criticisms. Here, one is constantly pestered by the effects and how impressive they are, as well as how unimpressive it is to see them essentially act as dressing to weak arcs of self-discovery. I found those other two examples dull and lifeless; similarly, Zemeckis' prior work, in these post-Polar Express domains, have been the often woeful and tonally broken Beowulf and A Christmas Carol – in comparison, The Polar Express has a certain energy to it and is easier to watch. It would be true to say that as the 1910s merged into the 1920s, and audiences demanded narrative over spectacle, so are we going in the opposite direction ninety years on, and it is a sentiment epitomised in films such as The Polar Express.