Scares 4 year olds, Mostly Filler, Some Scenes are Cool
Written: Nov 24 '04 (Updated Nov 24 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Lots of excitement, cool roller coaster ride
Cons: Very Contrived; 4 year olds wanted to leave; Not a warm movie; Unrefined Animation
The Bottom Line: Great if you are a train fan or like action and don't care much about the plot. Doesn't do justice to the book. Doesn't have the flavor of the book.
The Bottom Line
Great for adults and kids over 10 or 12. Suitable for most kids 6 and over from a fear point of view and suitable for kids over 10 or 12 from a "questioning Santa" point of view.
Overview
The producer had a challenge in making a 20 minute book into a feature length movie. There was about 20 minutes of plot in this movie and the rest was filler. The Incredibles blows this film away from every facet. My sister, who is 29 (again), says that the movie was fun and she liked it. I think it was a decent movie, but my opinion was degraded by scared 4 year olds, although my 8 year old was not scared. I don't know if there will be any repercussions from the discussion of Mr. C for my 8 year old (if there are, I will update this post). This movie lacked the warmth that one would expect in a Christmas movie.
Statistics
Number of times my twin 4 year olds said "I want to go home": 29
Number of near disasters in the movie: 17
Number of families that left during the scary beginning: At least 1 (looked like a 3 yr old)
Number of times the parents said "Oh not again" (to some disaster starting): 7
Number of minutes of filler: 72
Plot
Polar Express does a great job if you like trains, roller coasters, and action packed movies and video games. The mechanical scenes were great. The city was cool and the magnitude of the North Pole and the setup of the factory, etc. was neat.
There was this hobo on the train that was an extremely random addition (filler) to the movie. He didn't add anything to the movie and added to the fear factor in the beginning before it was clear he was a ghost toward the end. He should have been left out.
Animation
The animation was clear and exciting, but the characters lacked "character". There are many subtleties that people naturally detect as abnormal when viewing human faces and humans in motion. All of the characters moved and walked like they were marionettes or had arthritis. The eyes of the characters were odd and the finer facial expressions were lacking (like they were wearing masks - like the Planet of the Apes characters).
The elves were a little cold / scary at times due to poor animation.
It looked like they were trying to go with a magical look to Santa, but ended up with a hollow look.
Hopefully you have a better experience with the movie.
Why didn't we leave?
That is a fair question. As a parent, you are familiar with the fact that how your children say something is often more telling than what they say, as are we. They weren't terrified, but were frightened. Later on, we found out that one twin liked one scene that the other was afraid of and vice versa.
Add a grandparent who had been planning this outing for several weeks and the fact that we were part of a larger group, and we found ourselves in a tough situation. We were on the edge of walking out several times, but figured if we could just make it through a little longer, the children would finally arrive and things would be better. But it continued even after that (with little value in some of it, I might add).
Why is this review short?
I am with family for Thanksgiving and thought there would be others who might find themselves in a similar situation, so I thought that timeliness was more important than elegance or thoroughness. (and being with a large group of people, it is impossible to take the time right now to make a longer review)
Director Robert Zemeckis revolutionized the art of animated film in 1998's WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT by dropping cartoon characters into the same frame ...More at eBay
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.