Timeless

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2004)

Robert Zemeckis' self-indulgent, narcissistic masterpiece is entirely computer-animated and the enormous expense is all right up there on the screen, every penny of it. It's consistently in your face and (at least when seen on an IMAX screen in 3-D) frequently overwhelming--it's presented in a relentlessly showoffy manner. But it's also completely heartfelt and as moving as Zemeckis' best work, the sublime 'Cast Away' (itself one of the finest American films of the decade). The specialized CGI bravura is clearly the thing here, with well-thought, exciting and cleanly realized set pieces that take the nascent technical form to the limit. (A short section involving a floating train ticket is one of the most brilliantly realized examples of animation-any animation-ever created.) Based on the cherished children's book by Chris Van Allsburg in which a young boy who has ceased to believe in the magic of Santa Claus is whisked away on the titular train to the North Pole to restore his faith, it will delight and dazzle children of all ages and religious persuasions. But Zemeckis has become one of cinema's most sincere seekers and he concludes the film with a bittersweet questioning of the faith he has asked his audience to accept, noting that time--his primary passion in 'Cast Away'--and adulthood require the magic of innocent conviction to fade and be recalled simply as one of the components necessary to shape a life. Tom Hanks plays five roles that have been animated and they're some of the best he's played in quite a while, particularly the loving, no-nonsense Conductor that allows him to layer a humorously transparent veil of gruffness over the honest compassion he has styled his career upon. The magnificent Deco grandeur and elegance of the Polar Express itself and the North Pole workshops, by Rick Carter and Doug Chiang, fits effortlessly into Zemeckis' design of remembrance of things past. 'The Polar Express' should have no trouble being accepted as a holiday classic but time will reveal it to be what it truly is: the efforts of a master craftsman not only at the forefront of scientific methods to create art but with a yearning to explore the timeless qualities of being human.