POLAR EXPRESS review

Prepping for seeing POLAR EXPRESS began the night before… Friday night at Pedazo Chunk, my sis was having her monthly wing-ding at the store… Band jamming out back – films playing in the screening room – beer flowing for free and movie geeks and Austin CULTure floating about chatting freely. Father Geek and I were enjoying the White Russians and Vodka – when my nephew arrived. We had the responsibility to take him back to Geek Headquarters for an over-night stay. These nights rule, cuz they usually afford us time from brain washing and influence.

This particular night, it was prepping him to wake up at like 8am to go see Robert Zemeckis’ POLAR EXPRESS. With 4 year olds – one must prepare the kiddo for the movie they’ll be watching. I showed him the poster and he was quite cool to it. Didn’t want to see it. I showed him the trailer, and still… he just wanted to go see THE INCREDIBLES again. Frankly, I didn’t blame him. If you’re just looking at trailers and posters… THE INCREDIBLES looks much much more fun. But – I had a press invite for POLAR EXPRESS, not THE INCREDIBLES that next morning… and frankly – I was curious how the bizarre pseudo-dream-reality look of POLAR EXPRESS would affect a munchkin of 4.

So – I explained to Gio that the movie was about going to Santa Claus’ home at the North Pole. His eyes opened wide, “Santa Claus’ home?” “Yeah, see the little boy? He gets on the train for Santa Claus’ house!” “The train go Santa’s House?” “Yep, sure does.” “I go to Santa’s house?” The kid was hooked. At the age of 4, he’s just at that stage of evolving his own belief system in regards to Santa. He knows the songs of Santa, he knows about the reindeer and the sleigh. He’s met Santa and knows he tells Santa what he wants for Christmas. But Santa’s home, that there was a train that little boys and girls could catch? This was something new for him. A new piece of the puzzle.

Now, as you may have guessed… I’m a sucker for Christmas. I love it. I love the season, the lights, the visible breath, the tree, the wreaths, the songs, the films, the stories, the gifts, wrapping the gifts, shopping for the gifts, writing the Christmas cards, putting on the Santa hat, driving around town looking at decorations at night… I live to help Santa, he’s da man! Lasso the Moon, Now I have An Uzi, Hee Haw and on and on and on…

What is POLAR EXPRESS?

It is a lovely Christmas film that I found myself enraptured by. The 4 year old boy sitting besides me, sat transfixed by every second. His jaw slack – forgetting the popcorn, candy and drink in little lap. In fact – I’d say of the 40 or so films I’ve taken my nephew to, this was the one that most captured him. He was drinking in every second. Remembering to hold on to his ticket, if he ever gets it. Taking in the vast empire that Santa rules at the North Pole… The “Big Brother” style majesty to the spying equipment… The beauracracy of Elves, and much much more. Afterwards, he had a million questions about Santa – and he wants to be a very very good boy. At that very simple level the film is a glorious triumph. For a simple story about a boy, a train and a man in a flying sleigh to keep a kid fascinated not only for the entire running time, but to fill him with the dream of Santa and questions about jolly ol St. Nick for the rest of the day… That’s the dream of any good Christmas film.

He never questioned the technique or the expense of the film. Never complained about the realism or lack thereof in regards to the visual effects. His young brain observed only a story of a boy (and other children), a magically awesome train trip and of course the wonders of the North Pole. He reacted by giving the film his complete and undivided attention.

So – that was how the “kid” reacted… How about me?

Well, there is no getting around the technique of the film. If you were to go frame by frame through this movie, you’d find what would seem to be hundreds of thousands of beautiful paintings in sequential order. Each one quite arresting. HOWEVER, no matter how much rhetoric or spin Zemeckis and the crew want to spin about the film… This is ultimately just an insanely expensive version of a rotoscope film. I found the majority of the character work to be rather characterless. The voice work was good, but the characters seemed too stiff, They lacked the “character” that great animators can give to “simulated” performance. Back at the beginning of animation when rotoscope was innovated – the classic animators quickly learned that it had it’s place. For example, it provided a great “guide” for an animator, but that when employed with fantastic key frame work which essentially enhanced the “reality” of the “performance capture” that rotoscoping was. Go get your SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS dvd and look at the motion studies and reference work that was done for Snow White’s dance with the elongated Dopey. It is the differences between what was captured in reality and the work the great animators did to make the performance and the character work greater than any mere tracing job could do.

That POLAR EXPRESS is mainly a “Traced” film isn’t a reason to dismiss it. Technique is never the reason to applaud or dismiss… in film it ultimately comes down to the story. Frankly, I love the story. But in watching THE INCREDIBLES a week before, coming to POLAR EXPRESS – I can’t help but wonder how much greater all the character animation would be had the film been in the hands of a Pixar. This isn’t to discredit the astonishing beauty of the film. It is absolutely stunning. But – I’d say the best two characters animated in the whole film were the long red bearded guy and the fat guy that both controlled the engine of the train. They seemed more alive than any of the other characters. They felt less stiff and more… well, animated. And in my book, that’s what I want to see. I tend to watch animated features for extraordinary motion that can not exist in the real world. Does that mean there isn’t extraordinary motion or action in the film? Far from it. But to me, the performances in THE INCREDIBLES showed a higher degree of nuance and emotion out of their characters.

Having said that, what about Tom Hanks playing every other character in this? To me, it isn't a vanity deal like some will no doubt say, but rather using CG the way Kubrick and Sellers used make up in DR STRANGELOVE. Now... having said that... Does Hanks succeed as well as Sellers did? Not on your life - of course - these are far more 'simple' characters and not the showboats that Kubrick gave Sellers to sink his chops into. I still liked em... especially the "hobo" character. Liked that one quite a bit!

Zemeckis’ desire to create a moving painting overall was successful. Ultimately the story of recapturing one’s faith in magical things you can’t see, or that most never see… well, it’s strong. Some of the “cooler” production moments like the Hot Chocolate dance number, I enjoyed the transparent floor borrowed from Busby’s day, but nicely applied, and I’m sure for many, it’ll be innovative – but long before computers – this was done just fine. Still, it was cool to see again.

Later this week, I’ll be seeing POLAR EXPRESS on IMAX in 3-D. As a 3-D movie, this could very well be astonishing. The sense of motion, speed and just the general child’s eye framing of the film, should make it all the more magical. Will the film hit as big as something like THE INCREDIBLES? Don’t bet on it. Hopefully it will do well though. It’s a lovely little Christmas tale, no matter how big it wants to look.

The intimacy of the book has been expanded upon, but to me, it’s every bit as magical. My guess is that the film will be a seasonal fave. Ultimately, whether it makes Warner’s money now… I know it will be loved over time. Though – it’s always nice to be loved from opening day like Brad Bird’s work of genius!