The Polar Express
This viewing, a whole 2 years after my first and only viewing of this movie so far, proved a completely different experience from back then, and I part expected as much. I just, I don’t know, got it better. I said in that first review that there are great moments in the movie. They’re not great. They’re incredible, even profound. The animation isn’t as awkward as I remembered, and the score, while a little repetitive, is really beautiful. Watch it at Christmas and you really can’t go wrong. Like the song says, “Believe”. Raymond Brigg’s The Snowman did it slightly better, in my current opinion … but for a message so important, there’s certainly room for two tellings … and this one is longer, good for a lazy post-Christmas evening.
December 5th, 2004:
I was as buzzed with anticipation for this movie the first time I heard about it (which I think was as long ago as late last year – one possible reason for the disappointment) as I was about Matrix Reloaded, The Passion, Sky Captain etc, etc… but that anticipation really began to fade the moment pictures, clips, and trailers started to emerge.
There are a couple of great moments in this movie – truly great moments – but the movie mostly falls flat. I’m confused as to how anyone could give the go ahead for this movie had they seen an example of the finished result – the animation this movie wants to deliver just isn’t there yet. All the “performance capture” and stuff doesn’t seem to work: why do the figures still move as woodenly as those digital extras on the Titanic?
There’s a moment early on where the boy is looking through a keyhole at something. You just know Zemeckis is going to move his virtual camera right through the keyhole, just to show that he can. David Fincher did this in Panic Room. I’m saying this because watching The Polar Express, I found no reason whatsoever for its being animated as opposed to live action with a few CG effects, and it annoyed me. It’s a gimmick, which would’ve been great if it worked, but is only going to make the movie more embarrassing as the years go by. It just doesn’t look right.
I got a little carried away there :-/ Let me add that despite being majorly disappointed, the couple great moments were enough to leave me feeling like it wasn’t a completely wasted experience.