Movie Review: Polar Express

Movie: Execution:
Polar Express

It's hard to imagine a movie based on a short children's book, one which happens to be even shorter in words than in pages. But Polar Express is that movie. With liberties taken in plot to lengthen and broaden the story sufficiently for the big screen, only the general story and the illustrations remain relatively intact. It's like those factors that are much to blame and credit for the medicore script and the stellar look of the film.

The story told by Polar Express is simple and straightforward: It's Christmas time, and a young boy is on the cusp between wholehearted belief in Santa Claus, and the reluctant acknowledgement that there is no such thing. As the bewildered and disappointed boy goes to sleep on Christmas Eve, he's jarred out of bed by the passing of a magical train, the titular Polar Express. He boards the train where he finds other children also in need of something to complete their lives (whether it be confidence, humility, or love), and his own need for belief may or may not be met sufficiently on the night's journey to the North Pole.

As part and parcel of the expanded script, characters exist in the movie that aren't in the book. Certain events (the train slip-sliding on a frozen lake, for example) are also solely the inventions of the theatrical release. While those things should serve to flesh out the storyline, they don't; instead, they're the mere padding of time to bring the movie up to an acceptable length (it's a short movie as it is, running only about 90 minutes). What does, however, make Polar Express worth seeing is the cutting-edge technology utilized to make the movie.

"Motion capture" has been used before (most notably to create the character of Gollum in the much-praised Lord of the Rings movies), but Polar Express is the first film to consist 100% of motion capture footage. The technique—which involves placing hundreds of sensors on actors in skintight body suits and hoods to capture their real-time motions and expressions—enables animated bodies and faces to move naturally as well as to be presented three-dimensionally. The information gleaned from the sensors is then entered into a computer where the "skeletons" are fully fleshed and clothed digitally and placed into computer generated settings. The resulting realism is stunning. Though many critics have complained about the "deadness" of the eyes (something I was looking for but didn't see), and others have noted that the mouths and especially the tongues were lacking in reality (something I did note throughout), these shortcomings are solely the result of an inability to put sensors on actors' eyeballs and inside their mouths. The technique of motion capture itself is terrific, and the promise for even greater things is tantalizingly apparent.

The human character movements were very, very good with rare exceptions; wolves and an eagle that show up onscreen as the Polar Express careens through snowy forests are impeccable, up to and including the feathers on the eagle. I even suspect you'll believe in reindeer after seeing the ones created for Polar Express! As good as these things are, the backgrounds are even more amazing. The snow coming down looks entirely real; the snow on the ground through which some characters shuffle is perfect. The light from the train windows illuminating the immediate area outside the cars is beautifully rendered, the houses and buildings detailed, and the Polar Express itself a triumph. Sure, the cast is impressive (among those lending their "motion" to the characters in Polar Express are Tom Hanks—who actually takes on five major characters—Michael Jeter in his last peformance before passing away in March of 2003, Peter Scolari, and Nona Gaye). But its the filmmaking itself that steals this show.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Polar Express is rated G, a rating I don't believe is entirely appropriate. There are darker themed moments in the film as well as a certain complexity on occasion that doesn't lend itself well to the face-value interpretations of the youngest children. In a theatre filled with little kids, I heard more than a few little voices pipe up: "Where'd he go? Who is that?" There's also a very real issue of belief in Santa Claus here. For those kids who do still believe, the movie will instill doubts rather than the opposite it apparently intends. In some ways, I think Polar Express may be best suited to adults who can appreciate with appropriate awe the level computers have reached in generating such spectacles. That being said, if you're prepared to explain certain things, Polar Express will doubtless seem almost as magical to kids, only for very different reasons.