ero Boy has lost his faith. He no longer possesses the holiday spirit, and he's long past believing in Santa Claus. It happens to every kid at some point. Then Christmas Eve arrives, and so does a massive steam engine train. In fact, the train pulls up right in front of his house, with a Conductor imploring him to climb aboard and take a ride to the North Pole. Hero Boy at first declines the offer, and then reconsiders.
It turns out Hero Boy isn't the only child on the verge of losing his sense of wonder. The train is full of children who feel exactly as he does, and they're all about to have their minds changed—permanently. And that's because the train is headed toward the North Pole and because, yes, Hero Boy and friends, there is a Santa Claus. Of course, no such ride could happen without an assortment of obstacles, digressions and incidents that threaten to delay the arrival. And the obstacles, digressions and incidents occur one after the other. The train glides across water, even as the ice cracks beneath it. The train races through mountains like a runaway roller coaster. Merry waiters dance and sing while serving hot chocolate. Caribou cross in front of the train at the most inopportune moment. Hero Boy runs himself ragged trying to recover an unruly ticket that just won't stay put. And a Hobo regales Hero Boy with strange tales as he sits atop the speeding train.
By the time the train pulls in to the North Pole, Hero Boy has made pals with a bright African-American child, Hero Girl, a know-it-all referred to as Know-It-All and Lonely Boy. And together they experience the wonders of the North Pole, as around them holiday tunes play on speakers, elves make final preparations for the big night, and Santa himself greets one and all, dispenses some sage advice, hands out a few gifts and vanishes into the Christmas sky.
Eyes like lump of coal
The Polar Express, for the most part, is a magical, whimsical treat that most moviegoers will cherish—even if it's not quite the Christmas classic Zemeckis clearly set out to deliver. In adapting Chris Van Allsburg's 29-page story, Zemeckis does everything he can to expand the story while remaining true to Van Allsburg's text and paintings. Zemeckis relied on CG—with a twist—to realize his glorious imagery. The twist? He employed motion-capture performance photography to film Hanks, Gaye and his other actors and then digitally replaced them. Thus, the Conductor looks just like Hanks, and there's a human, naturalistic touch present in all the characters.
Story-wise, Zemeckis puts across all the lessons without boring adults or talking down to children. That said, it's a tad simplistic (learn to trust, we're all the same despite our color and class), and Zemeckis often stops the action to drive home those lessons. Hanks plays pretty much everyone: Hero Boy (though Daryl Sabara provides the voice), Hero Boy's Father, Hobo, the Conductor and even Santa. Somehow, he manages to make them all vibrant and differentiates them from each other, no small feat. Gaye gently underplays Hero Girl, while Deezen must have had a blast voicing the petulant, brainy Know-It-All. And kudos, too, to Scolari (and Jimmy Bennett), who ensure that, in the end, no one forgets Lonely Boy. However, peripheral characters are randomly thrown in and don't register: Steven Tyler rocks the Pole, but why? Didn't he already do the same thing on a Christmas episode of Lizzie Maguire? And what gives with the hopped-up Jewish elves?
Further, this grinch must report a few other flaws that nearly derail the whole film. Alan Silvestri's score tries way too hard to punctuate every little moment; better to complement an emotional bit than overwhelm it. Far more troubling, the eyes on nearly every character are oversized, glassy and off-putting. They look fake, and the characters seem incapable of looking at each other. There's no minimizing the gravity of the matter; for all the lifelike character movements and photo-realistic hair, the eyes are cold, detached and distracting.
