Pros: Uniqueness, color, intent of being a pleasing holiday movie. Disney/Pixar
Cons: weak story, slow story, limited settings and characters
The Bottom Line: Requires patience. I fail to see how most youths will sit through it compared to other movies or video games. DVD will be better value than a theater.
Story = C , Animation = B, "Acting" = B, Sound/music = B-, Settings C-, Characters = C.
I will be brief, leaving out most technical and "public relations" type information. This review focuses on how "watchable" it is for kids and adults.
My wife and I took our nearly 4 yr old daughter to see this along with our neighbors and their 3 1/2 year old boy and 6 year old daughter.
The movie runs about 1 hour and 40 minutes. The first 10 minutes is fine because you're exploring and taking in the animation. The next 60 minutes is slow and you've digested all the graphics leaving little to hold your true attention. The remaining 30 minutes does "speed up" with a bit more action and adventure.
Tom Hanks provides the voices and "acting" for some 5 characters in the movie and does a fine job. We're Tom Hanks fans and appreciate the uniqueness of this film but it still falls short of holding ones attention.
There are roughly 9 main characters in this movie. As I said, Tom Hanks plays 5 of them of which 1 is the primary character (The Conductor) 3 have very short parts(train engineers and Santa), 1 has an intermittent part (The hobo). The remaining 4 characters are children. There are other children and elves, but they are mainly background characters.
There are really only two settings in the movie: The Train "Polar Express" and the City of the North Pole". So, the limited characters and confined settings hinder this movie.
I could tell our daughter was a tad bored during the middle most of the movie but became more interested towards the end. Our daughter is very much a "Disney/Pixar" movie fan with all the traditional movies from the princesses to Nemo/Monsters Inc.
Having said that, I can't imagine any child over the age of say 7 or 8 who may be used to contemporary movies, animation, or certainly video games being interested in this movie. I think adults appreciate it much, much more have the maturity and patience to watch and wait through the slow parts.
This is a "wait for the dvd at the library" movie.
When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonde...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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