Polar Express, The (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

First, a word of explanation. "The Polar Express" is one of those computer animations that try to look as photorealistic as possible in their representations of the actual world. As a result, the humans appear almost but not quite true, like wax figures in a museum come to life. I've never understood this concept, which makes everyone look kind of creepy to me. If the 3-D animation technique for "Polar Express" was supposed to save money as opposed to using live actors, it apparently didn't work. This 2004 production cost about $150,000,000 to make. If the animation was supposed to provide us some visual treats we couldn't otherwise get with live action, it doesn't do any more than one of today's comparable live-action fantasies does. If it was supposed to open our minds better to the world of imagination, it does so at cross purposes. Would "Willy Wonka" or "Harry Potter" have been any better done in animation than in live action? I doubt it. When I finished watching "The Polar Express," I remember having been intrigued by the visuals but having wondered why it was done as a cartoon at all when live action could have accomplished the same thing without looking so...odd. Therefore, please, temper my remarks with this preliminary grousing in mind; and understand that the animation will probably not bother most anyone else.

The movie is based on a short, illustrated children's book by Chris Van Allsburg, and it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, the fellow who gave us such spectacularly creative delights as "Back to the Future," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Forrest Gump," and "Contact," all of them filled with fascinating characters and glorious sights for the eye. In "Polar Express," however, the director stretches (an unkinder soul would say bloats) a simple story idea with so many visual effects that the characters get rather lost in the proceedings.

The animation technique produces varied results. The scenery and surroundings are exquisite, imaginatively rendered in every detail, often looking like one of those Christmas globes with the snow swirling around inside; and from everything I can ascertain, the animation does a good job capturing the look and feel of the paintings in Van Allsburg's book. It's the people who inhabit this world who look artificial in a spooky sort of way. The filmmaking process that was used requires live actors to perform their roles and then computer animation to duplicate their actions. It's the modern equivalent of the early rotoscoping done by pioneer animators in the days of silent films. Although it's quite a bit more advanced now, the basic idea is the same. What I always have to ask is, if live actors perform the parts, why not make it a live-action movie? What more does animation do to make something a fantasy? Is the mere act of watching drawings instead of real people oblige us to believe all the more in a film's make-believe? Well, it may, and if it works for you, more power to the filmmaking.

The plot, what little there is of it, concerns a young boy at an age where he's about to lose his belief in Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas. In this most crucial year of his life, the Polar Express shows up at his doorstep one Christmas Eve to convince him there really is a Santa. Other children of a similar age and with similar feelings of disbelief fill the train. From here, the movie presents a sweet and moving fable of regaining (or retaining) one's faith in the Christmas spirit, as the boy learns to be kind to other people and to never lose his power of imagination. No complaints there.

Tom Hanks stars in the movie, and stars in the movie and stars in the movie. He is the voice behind most of the main characters, which works well for several reasons. First, he's a fine actor and provides good voice characterizations for, among others, the hero's father, the train conductor, a mysterious hobo, and Santa himself. Second, having Hanks voice so many of the characters makes it feel all the more like storybook time, as though one person alone were telling the tale, which, in fact is the case, as Hanks is supposed to be the boy grown up and looking back on his own childhood.

The other characters are ably, if not always so colorfully, voiced as well: A little girl that the boy befriends is played by Nona Gaye; the boy's sister and mother are played by Leslie Zemeckis; a shy, lonely boy is played by Peter Scolari; and, best of all, a know-it-all kid is played by Eddie Deezen. You'll recognize Deezen's distinctive voice instantly from things like "1941" and "WarGames." He practically saves the day by being the most unique and entertaining voice of all the characters in the movie; every time he appears, the movie livens up.

The action of the story takes places almost entirely on the train and at the North Pole in a series of short episodes. These brief segments involve the boy in various encounters and adventures, none of which are particularly involving because of their brevity. After a somewhat slow start, the episodes begin to come along rather quickly, and it's shortly afterwards that we realize there's not going to be much more to it than that; nothing lasts long enough to develop much tension, and there aren't many clear transitions between events to sustain an engrossing story line.

Possibly the rapid succession of incidents is intended to remind us of a child's dream, because certainly we're never convinced the boy is awake or asleep while all this is going on. Still, I found my mind wandering frequently, maybe indicating I'm not a child anymore.

Several of the segments have a rousing spirit, though, and they display a verve sometimes lacking in the rest of the film. There is a scene with dancing waiters and the song "Hot Chocolate" that comes alive in an energetic, Monty Pythonesque way; there's a stunning shot of an eagle flying through a gorge that is lovely enough to frame; there's a sequence where the train is sliding down a roller-coast track and then slipping sideways on an expanse of ice that is really quite harrowing; and there is a passage set in a roomful of puppets that is scary in the way only puppets and marionettes can be scary.