The Polar Express
Roll up! Roll Up! For the Magical Mystery Tour!
Actors: Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Eddie Deezen, Leslie Zemeckis, Nona M. Gaye, Peter Scolari, Charles Fleischer
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriter: Robert Zemeckis
Reviewed by Larry Stanley
"Sometimes the most real things in this world are the things we can't see."
I will never forget the night my parents tried to explain the truth about Santa. They told me there was no Santa Claus. It was heartbreaking, with lots of tears and words of encouragement. I felt sorry for them, having to lie like that.
Come on, No Santa Claus? Then how do the toys get under the tree every year? Adults? HAHAHA. Like people who can’t remember where they parked a car in a shopping lot or lose their keys or forget about birthdays, anniversaries and are always obsessed with job and work could handle that sort of responsibility.
"Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze! Welcome Christmas, come this way!"
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So, the answer is, “Of course there is a Santa” but adults don’t realize it since somewhere along the way, they lost the magic that a child has.
And being a child is a magic time. As children we knew when we were scared just what to do. Hide under the covers. Nothing can get you when you hide under the covers. And we knew what the answer was when something happened that we could not explain and adults always said, “You’ll understand when you are older.” Which usually means they don’t have the answer either. But as children, we did know.
It was “Magic”. And somewhere around 10 or 12 that magic began to drift away from us and we started to become the most horrid of creatures, The Grown Up.
Now, understand that there is a difference between an Adult and a Grown Up. An Adult looks around and tries to smile at the curiosity of children and tries to remember what childhood was like.
A Grown Up on the other hand never pretends anymore. They are wrapped up in their own lives and the magic is totally gone from their life. They don’t believe in Santa, or ghosts or things that go bump in the night. They deny the curiosity of children, instead telling them to “Grow up” or to “Act your age” or the worst for little boys, “Be a man” which translates roughly into, “Act like me. Don’t smile, don’t laugh. Don’t have any fun. Work until you are dead and forget about dreaming”.
Horror.
Children believe in Santa as strongly as they believe in their own parents, or the love of a puppy. It does not matter that this fat guy has to deliver billions of presents to millions of kids in just a few hours, once a year or that he actually does watch over us and he “See’s us when we’re sleeping, he knows when we’re awake”. Children simply ‘believe’ and ‘accept’ this fact.
Trying to tell kids that there is no Santa is one of the worst sins in the world. It destroys their sense of magic, and my erases the most special time of their lives, to that point.
So, The Polar Express is about childhood, magic and even Santa Claus and what He means to people, children and child-like adults.
Told from the view point of a young boy (voiced by Tom Hanks) who is sure there is no Santa since he has newspaper clippings of “Store Santa’s on Strike” {like you can always trust newspapers} and has even tried to convince his younger sister of this fallacy. But, our young protagonist still wants to believe but has a problem with it.
He wants to “See Him”. So, like all children at some point in their lives (and the occasional adult… Never a Grown Up) they try to stay awake on Christmas Eve, hoping to catch Santa as he comes down the chimney or when he is having his milk and cookies.
But of course, he falls asleep. But suddenly…. At Five Minutes to Midnight, he is awoken with his room shaking and the sound of a massive rumbling outside his window. Rushing downstairs he tears open the front door of his home just as a huge train comes to a shuddering stop in his front yard.
Now, in some places this is an almost common occurrence. But not at this time of night especially when there was not train tracks there when one went to sleep.
Confronting the mysterious but friendly conductor (also voiced by Tom Hanks) our hero is informed that this is in fact, “The POLAR EXPRESS” and it is on its way to the North Pole.
Now, he is given a choice. Climb on for an amazing trip or stay behind.
A Grown Up would shake his head and simply decide he was having a dream. They would go back upstairs, return to bed and continue living their lives with no magic. An Adult would shake their head, and timidly reach out a hand. Then they would giggle, pull their hand back, reach out again and finally either decide to go back to bed, not because they are dreaming but because they are actually afraid of the magic. Or they would climb aboard with a muttered, “They’ll never believe this at the office.”
But a child. Now that is different. Most children would be terrified of this opportunity. Oh, there are some who would just jump right on board, true. But many would react like the “Grown Up” and refuse the chance. Others would be like the “Adult”. Which is what our hero does. The Adult thing.
Which starts him on a ride that will not only boggle the mind, but will stretch the fabric of one’s own mental idea of what an animated motion picture is supposed to be.
I will be the first to admit that when I saw the previews for The Polar Express I was less then enthusiastic. My feelings were more or less, “Oh boy. Another computer generated cartoon.”
Well, slap me silly and call me “Sparky” but I had a blast. And yes, I can see the fight now between the two children’s films of the season, The Incredibles and The Polar Express. But, the only thing they have in common is that they are animated. It is like comparing Bugs Bunny to Fritz the Cat, apples and oranges.
Polar Express is a movie for children and Adults. Grown Up’s will just shake their heads at the smiles of the children and say how well the film was made.
But children and Adults will see the magic. They will hear the bell.
Traveling on the train, the children are treated to Hot Chocolate with a beautifully choreographed group of dancing, jumping waiters and chef’s and the Conductor belting out a great rendition of “Hot Chocolate” and are given the chance to find out who they are as well as what is important in life.
Our Hero finds that inside himself there really is a hero, and other children learn that there is always something to learn, or to lead, or to trust.
Meeting a hobo (voiced by Hanks. again) our young Hero tries to help a little girl that has lost her ticket for the train. He and the hobo talk about life magic and hope.
Our Hero and the little Hero Girl learn about friendship and trust, learning to depend on each other and to trust another’s leadership. And one young Lonely Boy learns that he is not alone, that friends can surround him if he just opens his eyes.
Chris Van Allsburg's wonderful story has been brought to beautiful life by computer generated images that are brought to life by real life actors wearing hundreds of little sensors designed to mimic and recreate each persons movements and expressions bringing them to life on the screen. Don’t be fooled. This is not your fathers cartoon image. This is an amazing screen presentation designed to bring out the most intense of emotions in adults and children.
The film presents a visual roller coaster ride but without the sharp bumps or painful turns. I swear, I could almost feel the wind whipping through my own hair.
Tom Hanks does a wonderful job playing the various characters and while he overdoes it in some places, you can see that at that point, the character –needed- to be overdone. Nona Gaye as the Hero Girl is sweetly wonderful and shows that leadership is certainly not age based.
The trip across the ice was worth the price of a ticket, Golden or not. Yes, a Golden Ticket.
The comparisons between Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and The Polar Express will abound. As will the comments of the film being racist or anti-Semantic.
But, trust me... Those comments will be coming from “Grown Up’s”. Not the Adults or children.
They still hear the bell.
The Polar Express is a beautiful, fun film designed to help all of us recapture the magic of childhood. Go see it.
| Rating: |
 (3 out of 4 stars) |
Additional Note: I watched this beautiful film at the newly Re-opened Oakdale Cinemas in Oakdale, California. While this theater is not a huge multiplex with a shopping center, restaurant and dry cleaners in the lobby, it is a fashionable family oriented theater with a friendly atmosphere.
It is clean inside with easy parking and both screens are Dolby Digital. The sound in a larger theater is amazing, especially in a film like The Polar Express. If you get the chance, drop in. They have great, fresh popcorn and $1 hot dogs.
Larry Stanley is the editor and publisher of Penguin Comics and Movies, located at http://www.penguincomics.net and has done over 500 movie reviews in his career. He is also a contributing reviewer to Cultcuts magazine (http://www.cultcuts.net) and Columbia360 (http://www.columbia360.com/) as well the magazine Devine Exploitation.
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