The Polar Express — 5

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338348/

This movie was always one that I never really wanted to see when it came out. There really was no reason behind it; I just had no desire to see it. Well turns out I gave it a few years and it turns out that the movie is really not all that bad. I actually enjoyed most of it.

There were 2 things that really got to me on this movie. The first one beings as this might as well have been Tom Hanks personal movie. He did so many of the voiceovers for it that he might as well have done it by himself. He did the main character, the conductor, the bum, the spirit on the train, Santa, and quite a few others. All of the other characters were done by one person each. It makes me wonder how many hours Tom Hanks spent in the booth. But the problem was that I could easily tell that each of the voices were Tom Hanks. It annoyed me. It’s almost like they had a low budget for the film, but they wasted it all on one main guy.

The other thing that got to me was that it never fully explained the bum that kept on reappearing throughout the movie. I am still confused as to why he was ever in it. It almost seems like he was put in just to eat up time to make the movie just a little bit longer.

OK, enough complaining. The music was fantastic. It fit the mood perfectly, but the songs stood out. But it is a movie aimed at kids, so that’s a good thing. There were however no memorably songs. Just songs to fill the gaps between dialog.

I also enjoyed that the movie had a mysterious beginning and no one knew where the train was supposed to be taking them, yet all of the kids got on without question. It was odd. Then again if I was a kid and a train appeared in the middle of the night on the street out front, I would probably do the same thing.

The story wasn’t great, but the action was entertaining from start to end. I wouldn’t say that one made up for the other, but it would switch from one to the other, so it was hard to notice that they both were not great. Tolerable yes, but not fantastic like a Christmas movie should be.

All in all it was enjoyable, but I will probably not watch it again for a while. Probably when I forgot what it was about and why I have it. And probably around winter sometime.

Base Score = 6
-1 for a one man voice over
-1 for not tying up loose ends in the story
+1 for good music
=5/10