On Christmas Eve, a young boy is beginning to have doubts about the existence of Santa. Suddenly, a massive train shows up on the street in front of his house, and a mustachioed Tom Hanks-looking/sounding conductor invites the boy aboard for a trip to the North Pole. In the passenger compartment, the boy meets other pajama wrapped kids, about his age. The journey is full of fantastical vistas and challenges, and each of the main kids we follow seems to learn something about themselves, or Christmas, on the journey north. Once at the North Pole, our main heroes get lost until they arrive at a massive ceremony seeing Santa off on his trip around the world. Our main character decides he believes in Santa after all. With his restored conviction, he is able to see and hear the fullness of Christmas. *Cue sweeping Silvelstri score*
Like the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials of yore, “The Polar Express” now plays a bit like an artifact of its time: 2004. The film seems to be made primarily to show off emerging motion-capture technology. It is to mo-cap what “Toy Story” is to computer animation. But between the two Tom Hanks films, this story meandered more and seemed to have fewer consequences. It wasn’t bad. It’s a beautiful film (the ticket floating through nature scene felt like the film was just showing off its stunning imagery) and had a charming, magical design. But the motion capture performances the film is centered around proved to be its Achilles’ heel. The character performances land somewhere between “video game” and “uncanny valley”, with no emotion really shining through. In light of this, Alan Silvestri’s wondrous score is left to do all of the emotional heavy lifting—and it certainly delivers. So yeah. It’s a film with good things and bad things. A bit contradictory, and that’s ok. I suppose that makes sense for a film that poses that believing doesn’t alway require seeing by—well—letting our hero boy actually see Santa.