An amusement park, not a movie

Rating: 5/10 (26 November 2004)

How very disappointing. I was hoping for a Christmas movie with a "spirit of Christmas" type story about heart & warmth & spirit and instead I got a mechanical look at people riding a roller coaster. I've never read the book so I can't say how the story compares, but in this film there is no story. None, nada, zero, zip. Not one iota of plot at all.
Here it is: kid gets on train. Train is a roller coaster and goes up down around trough over under left right etc. Kid winds up on roof as tunnel approaches. Somewhere in the middle of this there is a weird dance sequence where hot chocolate is served. The train arrives at the North Pole and main kids get lost and wind up in Santa's gift processing machine which is yet another amusement park ride, this time a slide. Kids meet Santa and go home.
There are no characters in the traditional sense, thus no character development. The dialog is minimal as most of the movie focuses on the roller coaster's ... I mean train's ... trip to the north pole using stunning visuals and impossible camera angels. I suppose it's all very exciting but it leads up to... nothing.
The "BIG MESSAGE" at the end is simple "believe in Christmas." Nothing revelatory here. And given the not-quite lifelike people populating the film, it's hard to get any kind of human message. The visuals are stunning, but the people are still not quite there yet. And this too-smooth, glossy mechanical look kills any ability to empathize with the characters. This might have worked better as a traditional 2D animated film or using more stylized human figures.
Overall, a maddeningly disappointing film from one of my favorite directors.