Fun Christmas Favorite

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2016)

I never read the Polar Express as a kid. Coming from the UK originally as I do, it was not wildly available there. I believe it is now, thanks mainly to the movie generated from it.
Having said that, I watched the movie at the cinema when it came out in 2004 and was blown away. I've seen many of the comments here and it makes me cringe that all people can think to say is how unrealistic the kids look. This is an animated movie. Anything CGI or the evolved performance capture is never going to look truly realistic. You only have to look at computer game video cut ins to know that.
It didn't strike me the first time watching, but I did watch the movie again a week later as a chaperon to school kids who got to see the movie in the cinema as their final day of school before Christmas treat and then it dawned on me that this movie was a very modern adaptation of the Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" - and this has been remarked on in some other comments where the Conductor represents the ghost of Christmas present, the ghost/hobo on the train represents the ghost of Christmas past, and Santa Claus the ghost of Christmas future. Having seen many renditions of the Dickens' classic, when you are aware that this is the theme that was adopted for Polar Express, then it's instantly understandable that there has to be an element of darkness and the macabre to make that connection and so I have no problem whatsoever in believing that was the message the producers wished to convey, after all A Christmas Carol is all about believing, just as Polar Express is.
I never tire of watching this movie around Christmas time that I now have as part of my DVD collection. The plot line is such that it is somewhat fantastic and "unbelievable" to a certain extent, but rather than drawing criticism from me, I feel this was deliberate. The child's faces, sure there is certain something lacking, but then again this was the very first attempt at a feature length performance capture movie. I also feel that the producers and writers were trying to recreate the look and feel of the imagery from the original book, thus not requiring perhaps as much realism as one would ordinarily expect to see. Indeed a lot of the colorful backdrops that you see at the North Pole remind me very much of imagery that was generated by the painter of light, Thomas Kinkade. I am certainly not reminded of zombies, or the walking dead when seeing the characters move on screen. It actually made me laugh when I saw those comments. I am more reminded of how it is to imagine as kid. Bright colors, wonderful backdrops, well defined imagery. All of this was very well done in the backdrops to "The Wizard of Oz" and that was a movie made over 70 years ago - with NO computers. Imagine if that same story was made today with the technology at hand.
I was wondering about where so many people have said that this is a pointless movie as there is no plot. I've heard this before. This movie doesn't NEED a plot. It's about the journey of belief and how it doesn't need to be structured, but simply exist. This is mirrored very well in another children's story - "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory" (2005) where Mike Teavee says "why is everything here completely pointless" to which Charlie Bucket replies "Candy doesn't have to have a point - that's why it's Candy" All in all, this is a fun movie to watch for children of all ages. Definitely one to last the ages.