See It In 3-D, if You Can

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2004)

I'm lucky enough to live in Colorado Springs, which has one of the few 3-D IMAX Theaters. Be that as it may, I hardly ever attend a film there because it's like $3 more than the regular matinée ticket price ($5.25). But I went with my family to see this yesterday and I'm glad this is where I saw The Polar Express.
The Polar Express isn't necessarily a good movie. It shows how difficult it is to adapt something like a 32-paged picture book into a 100 minute movie. There are some pointless adventures on top of the train, with a ticket, and on some ice. Then within the workshops of the elves (I wish that more people would make elves tall, like the ones Tolkien brought to life in his novels). On top of that, there is a rather annoying musical number with, get this, Tom Hanks singing. And then, at the end, the film falls victim to its own sentimentality. It gets to be TOO sentimental, unlike the book, where the whole mood fit right in.
And because of this, I don't think this would have been that great of a movie in 2-D on the regular screens. But in 3-D, Zemeckis's visuals pop out at you. You can catch try to catch the snow, stop the train, slap the Hero Boy in the face, or shake Tom Hanks's hand (my brother tried to do all of these). This is what made the movie cool to me.
So, if you ever get the chance, see it in 3-D at an IMAX theater. But be warned, the lines will be HUGE. At the ticket booth, nearly all the IMAX shows were sold out while there seemed to be a lot of room in the normal theaters. Get there early and bring a book to read.
In fact, if you're taking little kids like your children or siblings, why don't you take the BOOK itself and read it to them before going to the movie?
Again, I'm glad my city has one of these theaters. Oh, one more thing. At least at our IMAX we didn't get those annoying blue and red glasses that came with Spy Kids 3-D. You get those nice black ones, so you can see all the colors the same, but the images still stick out at you. You know, the kind they have at DisneyWorld.
For this film, I would give it 2/4 if I had seen it in normal theaters. But since I got THE IMAX EXPERIENCE, I'll give it 3/4.