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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new First ScotRail route?, 27 Dec 2005
A criticism leveled at a currently running holiday movie, CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS, is that Jesus is mentioned nowhere in the plot. THE POLAR EXPRESS, a much superior film, doesn't either. (Just so you know if you care about such things.) THE POLAR EXPRESS is all about childhood belief in Santa Claus and getting presents. If, like me, you don't particularly care much anymore (Bah humbug!) about Santa and presents, the film represents an extraordinary achievement in animation and motion-capture technology. And, it's great fun.The plot is simple. On Christmas Eve, a young boy finds himself doubting the existence of Santa even as he gazes at the ornamented tree and the cookies and moo laid out for jolly St. Nick. He goes to sleep suspecting that Dad is the real benefactor. In any case, he's awakened in the middle of the night by the steam-belching locomotive of the Polar Express, which has pulled to a stop in the street. After some initial hesitation, our young hero climbs aboard for a wild ride to the North Pole where his belief in Santa may (or may not) be resurrected. This film, insofar as it uses real actors to provide the voiceovers and the substrate for the motion-capture effects, is virtually a one man show for Tom Hanks, who "plays" the Boy Hero, his father, the train's conductor, a mysterious hobo, a Scrooge puppet, and Santa himself. (The Boy Hero's voice is provided by Daryl Sabra. Tom doesn't do soprano.) You'd think the Screen Actor's Guild would protest the reduction in actors required to meet casting requirements. As an exercise in motion-capture, THE POLAR EXPRESS is an intriguing glimpse at what may be the future of the motion picture industry. As seen in this film, they haven't quite yet got the technique down perfect. The human movements are faintly unnatural - perhaps a greater concentration of motion sensors are needed on the real life actor's skin. And the eyes are sometimes downright creepy. (If my wife showed up with such orbs, I'd search the Yellow Pages for "exorcist".) The animation of the animals in the film is, however, superlative, as evidenced by a breathtaking sequence of a running pack of wolves that left me positively delighted. I'm awarding five stars for the incredibly detailed visuals. It's a small thing, but I was entranced, for example, by the swirling vortices of ice flakes created by the train's passage through a snowstorm as framed by the rear door of the last passenger car. I find it amazing and commendable that the film's creators would think to include such an esoteric detail. It's been predicted in some quarters that THE POLAR EXPRESS will become a Yuletide season classic. That it would ever replace IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is doubtful. Tom Hanks, as phenomenal as he is, is no Jimmy Stewart, and THE POLAR EXPRESS doesn't have even a fraction of the warm fuzziness. But the latter is at the top of its genre.
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