THE POLAR EXPRESS

(2004, Robert Zemeckis, USA)

rating = 63


What do you get when you take a classically Rockwellian children's book, written by a man who won't even use a computer, and turn it into a Motion Picture, using technology that is so state-of-the-art, that it can realistically by called futuristic know-how?   You get the surprisingly enjoyable, The Polar Express - that's what!

Taking what has been dubbed, performance capture (filming a flesh 'n' blood Actor, studded with tiny reflective lights and then transposing them into computer versions of themselves), Zemeckis, who has made films that run the spectrum from the sublimly antic (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) to the mundanely irritating (Forrest Gump), has pulled off what everyone said he could not - or at least, nearly pulled it off.

When signing over rights to his "beloved" (don't you hate that word!?) book, Author Chris Van Allsburg, stated that he didn't think either live action nor animation could do his story justice - so they did something in between, and although these "human" faces do have a creepy waxworks look about them (but is Tom Hanks any better in real life?), the visual stunningness of the film is remarkable.

And although the visual magnificence of The Polar Express plays well at its eye-candied games, the story itself (the book is just a mere 29 pages long) is filled with multitudes of gimmicky little ideas (added by Zemeckis and crew, in order to flesh out the normally twelve minute or so story).   These ideas look good, and they're not actually bad ideas (better than most typically Hollywoody pranks), so it does manage to all work together in a cohesive (if not a little mundane, story-wise) way - even if we are saddled with a long tracking-shot-esque view of a runaway ticket that is (not so) hiddenly reminiscent of a certain damned little feather in another Zemeckis/Hanks production.

Working much better during the non-peopled exterior shots, Zemeckis has managed to create something real out of the unreal, even if it still looks unreal, and he's taken a beloved (there's that damned word again!) children's Christmas book, that actually has a genuine integrity to it, and given it a life like none other that came before it.   Whether or not, performance capture technology will catch on - and I think this film may be a bit too cerebral to become a huge hit - is still up in the air, but for all its creepiness, it does play out exceedingly well, at least in a visual sense - even if it does have a rather soulless interior.