The Polar Express - Review

The Polar Express
Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Chris Coppola, Peter Scolari, Josh Hutcherson
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by: Robert Zemeckis & William Broyles, Jr.
Based on the book by: Chris Van Allsburg
2004 Rated G

by Muchacha Genia
www.maskedmoviesnobs.com

I was excited to see this film, simply because it is nearing Christmas and I needed something to get me into the spirit of the season. I was also told by a friend of mine that this film was excellent.

I ended up taking my 2 year old nephew, who by the way, has never been able to sit still in a movie theatre. Though, this time, he was quite the young man---calmly sitting on my lap, enjoying popcorn with his Aunt Genia, eating one kernel after the other like he was a little adult.

The story starts off pretty quickly and the animation is different---more "human looking" than I would prefer when opting to view animation on screen. It begins in the bedroom of "Hero Boy"; whose voice is Daryl Sabara (Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2. Was Haley Joe Osmond not available? Or Macully Culkin?) Anyway, let's call him "Hero" for short. Hero is the focus of the entire boring story. He's a rich kid who wears a robe and slippers throughout the entire movie. Hero is starting to think that "Santa" is a scam and never existed; hence he is labeled a "non-believer". You see him spying on his parents through a peep hole in the door as they prepare for Christmas Day. Particularly, you see Hero with this suspicious look on his face as he notices a Santa hat in his father's back pocket.

About 10 minutes into the movie, Hero falls asleep (or was it I who fell asleep?) and you hear this rumbling noise---the animation on screen is shaking as if an earthquake has hit this little make-believe town that Hero lives in. Hero wakes up (and I wake up---impossible to sleep no matter how bad you want to.) It turns out to be, you guessed it, The Polar Express---a loud, obnoxious, rickety-ass train; that parks itself right in front of Hero's house. Hero walks outside to see just what the hell is going on, only to find the train's Conductor, Tom Hanks, inviting him onto The Polar Express, which is heading towards Santa. Hanks' character as the Conductor looks somewhat like an embalmed human---a little creepy, but it gets even creepier when you later find that Hanks plays nearly every character in this very weird movie.

As Hero steps aboard the train, you see other children his age jumping around and laughing. One of these kids, credited as "Know It All", whose voice is none other than super nerd Eddie Deezen (Grease, Punky Brewster, and many more classics), steals the show. His character is the only one that brings "fun" and "life" to this pathetic $165 million dollar disaster. (Where was this money spent? On what? On who? Surely, Tom Hanks is NOT worth that kind of money! $165 million for an animated movie whose majority of characters are played by ONE man---TOM HANKS?!)

The train takes off and Conductor Hanks begins to punch everyone's ticket; which magically appear in each child's pocket. Suddenly, the train stops once more to pick up another non-believing child, "Lonely Boy", who eventually gets on the train, but not before Conductor Hanks tries to leave him alone outside in the blizzard conditions---all because the poor boy was a tad hesitant to board a train with a TOTAL STRANGER. What kind of mixed message is this movie sending?! You see the train begin to take off as Lonely Boy begins to freak out, crying in the snow. He starts running after the train, trying to jump on, but Conductor Hanks could care LESS! His motto: "he had his chance, time is a tickin'." The other kids pile over to the window and begin to scream, "Come on! Come on! Get on the train! Run faster!" Hero then hatches a bright idea and pulls the emergency break. By this time, Lonely Boy is face-down in the snow from tripping, as he ran as fast as he could in his bare feet to catch up with the train. Again, Conductor Hanks could care LESS. Lonely Boy gets on the train, but chooses to sit in another car, away from the other children.

One ticket, belonging to the token black girl on the train, accidentally flies away. Hero feels at fault for this (I forget why exactly.) Hero desperately tries to grab the ticket---leaping from car to car, risking life and limb to get the ticket that ends up flying outside of the train. Hero follows the ticket to the top of the train (yes, as it travels 200 miles per hour, Hero is traipsing along the top of the train) when he runs into this freakish, addicted, dirty hobo who has taken refuge on top of the speeding train. The drunk hobo has a fire lit with a pot of "coffee" brewing. He offers Hero some "coffee" and Hero takes a gulp (nice influence) only to spit it out. Again, all of this occurring while the train is ripping through the forest, going in and out of tunnels, curvy paths, and steep mountains. The hobo begins to talk to Hero as they sit atop the snow-covered Polar Express. The "camera" then zooms in on the hobo's dirty socks that are drying near the fire he has going. Why? I have no idea! The hobo throws a few philosophical questions at Hero, who then looks at the hobo like he is nuts and takes off. Hero quickly moves along, landing himself back inside the train with the ticket. THANK GOD! It was horrifying to watch him chase this ticket.

The train ride becomes entirely too long and drawn out, much like this review. There are some other strange happenings aboard The Polar Express, but I am boring myself having to rehash and relive this film. I will note that children are left to operate the engine train because the hillbilly engineers are apparently drunk, as well; which is on a deadly journey down roller-coaster-esque mountains, only to land on top of a frozen lake; that is, no less, CRACKING! The hobo's head hits the top of a tunnel at some point in the movie as the train zips along (no blood of course, but still, I think we can imagine what his head looked like after that and so can the children watching this horror movie!) It definitely wasn't a "feel-good" movie, by any means. It was just plain disturbing. The only thing that would make this a feel-good movie is, well, acid.

Finally, they arrive at the North Pole and you see the "Lonely Boy" refusing to get off of the train. He begins to tell his new friends that Christmas has never been good for him and he never had gifts at Christmas time. It's all quite sad. The children begin to sing a very, very sad song and I begin to feel depressed and suicidal. Lonely Boy eventually steps off the train and into the path of a speeding bus (just kidding, but it wouldn't surprise me in this movie.) He steps off the train and begins to run around the North Pole with Hero and two other kids. You see them snooping on Santa's elves, peeking at toys, riding conveyer belts, and so forth. One of the elves tells the children that there will be one child who receives a gift from Santa. They all get excited, each one hoping it's them who is chosen.

After what seemed like hours at the North Pole, Santa finally decides to show up. He emerges from what appears to be a court house (hmmm) and it doesn't even look like Santa. In fact, it isn't Santa. It is none other than Tom Hanks---AGAIN! He looks awful as Santa. So bad that it ruined the entire movie for me. I can deal with the other bizarre events aboard The Polar Express, but you cannot take a timeless classic like Santa and change everything about his appearance so that he is barely recognizable. Even I was looking forward to seeing Santa. To be honest, I could barely contain my own excitement as I heard his footsteps coming. It was the only moment to look forward to in this two hour disaster of a movie. Had I seen Santa the way he is supposed to look---fat and jolly, I might have walked away from this movie with a partial smile on my face. Instead, you've got Hanks as this animated, skinny, pale-faced Santa Claus dressed in a retro 1920's red suit. His jacket is down to his calves for God's sake! It sucked. He sucked. Everything about this movie sucked.

For those of you who haven't slit your wrists yet, the movie doesn't end until one child is chosen to receive the first gift from Santa. Everyone in the theatre is wondering which child will be selected. I thought it was going to be the poor, lonely, humble kid who sat by himself not making a peep the entire train ride, but nooooooo, it's the brat in the robe and loafers. Unbelievable. They give the gift to Hero! Not the kid who has had to do without his whole life. Hero chooses a "bell" from one of the reindeer as his gift. Great choice, Hero. Not. He ends up losing it and I think we all know why---because he is a spoiled little rich kid from the suburbs who doesn't appreciate or take care of anything!

Santa then flies off, laughing sadistically as he begins whipping his reindeer and his huge bag of toys (don't ask me why he was whipping the bag of toys, but he was.) There was even this loud whipping/flogging noise each time he laid into the reindeer with his whip. It was crazy. Whipping the reindeer?

Avoid taking impressionable children to this sick demented flick! Not only will they learn bad habits like hanging out with hobos and strangers on trains, they'll learn to drink coffee and booze while torturing animals with whips and sticks.

My rating: A very generous C -