Review

Review Date: 14-November-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

The Polar Express (2004)

The Christmas spirit is alive and well here at The Jujube, where we're more than willing to define the reason for the season as a jolly old man from the North Pole who epitomizes faith, goodwill, and giving. Gummy kudos, then, to director Robert Zemeckis and his friend Tom Hanks for wanting to bring Chris Van Allsburg's yuletide fable "The Polar Express" to the big screen, and a sticky thumbs-up to the technical team that used it to explore the potential of cinematic animation. The movie is Christmasy and lesson-y, glossy and suitable for children. But, regrettably, it's also misguided and frequently dull.

Hanks voices almost all the major characters in the picture, including the unnamed young hero who goes to bed Christmas Eve with serious doubts about Santa Claus and is wakened by the arrival of an old-fashioned, coal-powered passenger train. The boy briefly considers refusing the invitation of the conductor (who looks like Hanks as well as sounds like him), but changes his mind and boards the Polar Express with a magical ticket in the pocket of his robe. There he finds other kids (doubters too?) who have been summoned for the ride, and he soon befriends an intrepid girl (Nona Gaye) and a wallflowerish stripling from the wrong side of the tracks (Peter Scolari).

The first part of the adventure has some honest delights. My initial reaction to the lifelike "performance capture" animation was to wonder why they didn't just use real people, but the trek north reveals how computer wizardry makes all things possible. (Admittedly some things, like the manic hot chocolate number, shouldn't be attempted just because they're possible.) In one beautiful sequence the "camera" follows a gilded ticket as it flies out of the hero's hands and is carried through the wilderness, eventually returning to the train by serendipity. There's also a moonlit meeting with a ghostly hobo who haunts the roof of the Express, who's clearly filler but cool all the same.

Shortly before the children arrive at their destination, Zemeckis throws in a perfectly hideous duet between the otherwise likable girl and wallflower that signals the moment of the movie's derailment. (Accursed Disney! All big-budget kids' movies must contain nauseating songs that will, inexplicably, be nominated for Oscars.) Anyone capable of a tingle for Kringle must imagine that the North Pole is a place of untold wonder, but here it looks like one of your better-preserved English mill towns; and the elves, I must say, are a fright. (As is the music; who could work with that piped-in holiday crap always playing in the background?) Other shows have envisioned Santa's home base as essentially a workshop, but it's disappointing that no magic is generated here despite the filmmakers' capacity for unleashing the imagination. And miserably, the flatness extends to the old man himself, a not-so-fat, not-so-jolly, not-so-charming demagogue who convinces the hero to believe ... but in what?

Friendship, courage, the innocence of childhood: "The Polar Express" touches all these themes but doesn't settle on one, lazily wrapping them up in a package labeled "Christmas." Despite its occasional warmth and beauty, it doesn't offer enough enchantment to make it worth the trip.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.