Movie Review – Polar Express

Movie Review – Polar Express

Polar Express could have been a great movie.  Too bad it wasn’t.

I want to reveal my bias up front.  I don’t like Christmas movies.  I don’t like ‘”feel good” movies.  To me, most of these films feel false and manipulative.

Since my general opinion of the genre is negative, It should not have been no surprise to me that I didn’t care for Polar Express.

The plot of the movie is your basic holiday stuff; a boy has doubts about Santa Claus, rides a magical train to the north pole and meets the big guy,, has his faith restored. 

The reason I made an effort to see this movie is that its based on the award winning book by Chris Van Allsburg. 

Visually I was not disappointed.  A number of the scenes were exactly like the illustrations in the book.  Lovely. 

The story starts out fine, the kid, the conductor the train, the wild ride.  Then all of the sudden the whole thing comes to an abrupt halt as the three main child characters sing a long boring smarmy song.  This felt like a scene constructed by a hollywood committee.  As I waited for it to end, I imagined the meeting where it was decided that a “heart warming scene was needed”.  Gag me.

That bring me to another problem with this film, the music!  Ugh.  What an awful sound track.   Intrusive, uninspired, cloying. 

Then there is the whole creepy cult scene.  The train is in the north pole, the kids are in the square with the elves waiting for Santa.  There are crowds of identically dressed elves in every direction, filling the frame.  The point of the scene is the process of making the kid become a ‘born again Santa believer'.  It made me squirm.  

In the end, I felt like this movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a touching tale of holiday spirit, or a ripping good adventure of a little boy.  By trying to do both, it didn’t succeed at either.

I say skip it.