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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 31.78%
Worth A Look: 11.63%
Average: 25.58%
Pretty Bad: 18.6%
Total Crap: 12.4%
10 reviews, 69 user ratings
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| Polar Express, The |
by Erik Childress
"Seeing IS Believing. You Serious, Clark?"
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Robert Zemeckis has previously directed a dozen films; four of which (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Cast Away) were named the best film of their respective year by yours truly. Those four titles are a ticketed career in anyone’s Hollywood and his other eight aren’t shabby by a longshot either. Very few live-action filmmakers have ever steered their imagination directly into the world of animation. Vice versa is another story and is normally truncated by lacking the chops to do more beyond the visuals. Zemeckis has a one-up times ten on the animators by approaching it with the same moxie of a film lover who can’t wait to open that big present under the tree and play with it over and over. And, as always, Zemeckis re-gifts it for us all and delivers an instant Christmas classic which shall be re-opened every holiday the same way Charlie Brown and the Grinch are.I first remember Tom Hanks talking about this book written by Chris Van Allsburg on David Letterman’s show in the late 90’s. Even back then when this project was just a glimmer in his eye, I could see the kinship he felt to it. Little did I know it was only a 32-page book, heavy on the illustrations and light on the words; but not the poetry. It’s a universal tale that not surprisingly touches as many adults as it would children so it’s only fitting that the same approach would inspire the filmmakers.
The original text doesn’t need more than a single sentence to describe it. A boy whose faith in Santa Claus is dwindling is invited to hop a ride to the North Pole to meet the big guy. Zemeckis and co-screenwriter William Broyles Jr. started from there and expanded the adventure.
A train ride is frought with opportunities for danger, even one as meticulously scheduled as The Polar Express that would make Mussolini proud. We’re treated to the kind of rollercoaster-like spills almost designed for a theme park somewhere over-and-over. A jumping from the tracks over a frozen lake gives Zemeckis the opportunity to create the sort of action sequence that would be almost impossible to behold in the real world. The exhilaration is like a gut-punch that instantly travels throughout your body and finds the sensitive areas of your soul. And that’s just the action.
We can probably all remember the age or the moment when we discovered beyond a reasonable doubt that Santa Claus was nothing more than a bedtime doppelganger for the spirit of Christmas. Maybe you were sad. Maybe you felt a growing of your intelligence. Maybe it was the first moment of resentment for being duped all those years. The young boy of The Polar Express feels a bit of each. His collection of anti-Santa evidence is a clever highlight in the midst of still experiencing some shock as his parents drop further hints.
The other children onboard are mostly along for the ride and have few doubts beyond initially deciding to hop on. There’s a brave little girl who befriends our skeptic hero. Another is an annoying know-it-all with the inspired casting choice of Zemeckis’ favorite Jerry Lewis substitute, Eddie Deezen. One little boy has never experienced the traditional dalliances that come with the holiday myths and sense of gift-giving and finds himself alone in a world of celebration that he’s never been invited to. Until now.
Hanks himself plays five roles including the young hero and his father; though whom only seen in glimmers and shadows still retains the unmistakable features of its star. The motion capture technology (initially developed by the golfing industry of all things) wielded in the film is another benchmark in the Zemeckis revolution. Innovations to animation almost begin and end with Pixar and various styles have been experimented with from Shrek to Final Fantasy to this year’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Simply put, The Polar Express is the grandest “WOW” experience I’ve had in this world of film since the original Toy Story. It’s like discovering Pixar all over again.
What’s wondrous about Robert Zemeckis beyond his innovations and astute skills as a storyteller is that he’s consistently trying to outdo not others, but himself. Some filmmakers homage previous works. Zemeckis is always improving on them. When he wanted to fantasize the kind of film Hitchcock would make today given the technology at his disposal, he went for it in What Lies Beneath. His glee for placing and moving the camera where none has gone before creates breathless bouts of anticipation for where he will go next. There are shots through the train, under-and-over it, with angles that could only be created by special effects in the 2-D world. The feather trail in Forrest Gump was just a warmup compared to what he does here with a lost ticket.
If there is any fault with The Polar Express, it’s almost as if they had TOO much fun with their toys. Taking us up to the boundaries of imagination and greeting us with an Elf Lieutenant singing a rockin’ Steven Tyler song is a bit off-putting, particularly when a CGI Tyler is even scarier looking than the 2-D version.Zemeckis and Broyles do a really fine job with the screenplay, keeping its themes in check and providing food-for-thought rather than driving home a definitive ideology. That may be a bit much for kids. But keeping a character like Hanks’ hobo within the realm of mystery and the existence of entities from angels to ghosts to Santa up to our own sense of faith (as evidenced in Zemeckis’ Contact) is a more productive message than someone telling us we’re all right or all wrong. Forgive me for sounding somewhat hypocritical, but The Polar Express IS all right, a noteworthy achievement that is impossible to scoff at on a technical level and Scrooge-like to humbug at it’s fairy-tale enchantment of hope and wonder. Alan Silvestri’s exquisite all-encompassing score is a perfect counterpart and the story is immortally Christmas. Do not miss the opportunity to begin a new family tradition, because with The Polar Express seeing truly is believing.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10918&reviewer=198
originally posted: 11/10/04 16:24:03
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Chicago Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Chicago Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
10-Nov-2004 (G)
DVD: 22-Nov-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
18-Nov-2004
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