This is vile

Rating: 1/10 (16 January 2007)

"The Polar Express " was an awful movie. What makes this movie worst is the hypocrisy to present itself as a innocent,s sugary and harmless tale for children about the "true " meaning of Christmas. I never read the book of Chris Van Allsburg in what it was inspired, but the most disappointing is that it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, the same director who made the great animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", an excellent movie where he proved that the animation could be appreciated for kids and adults as well, while in this movie it seems that he was victim of his own ambition and he give too much importance to give the characters impressive level of detail and "realism" rather than a interesting story.
Everything from this movie seems to be so artificial and lifeless:Despite the "realistic" appearance of the characters, they look more like creepy mannequins with eyes made of glass rather than living beings.
But the worst part of "The Polar Express" is the "message" in this movie, which is just vile. For example, in one scene, where one kid refuses to enter into the Polar Express, the character that looks like Tom Hanks makes a gesture like saying "you are stupid for not accepting my offering ". There is also the scene where the diversity token girl says something like the toys were so "warm " and things like that. All the movie the kids keep talking about how big would be the gifts that Santa would give to them . There is even a song about that.
Filled with lots of irrelevant scenes and annoying characters (Not to mention the horrible songs) the movie ends with the main character finally discovering the "true" meaning of Christmas (Or whatever): Guess what it is? The gifts! it is true that many Christmas movies have hidden subtexts and messages like that ,but "The Polar Express " it's completely shameless about celebrating materialism and greed.
I don't think that "The Polar Express" were a very appropriate film for the kids,because if is that what the kids would learn, I don't want to think how would be our future.