Very long ago on this blog I did a series of spooky reviews to mark the occasion of Halloween, I loved doing that, though it was a bit of a train wreck (pun intended), and the same applies to a series of festive reviews I did later that year, sadly. To tell the truth, I'm not a very festive person; I like getting presents for people, I like getting presents from people, and I enjoy putting up Dinky, my affectionately named shitty little Christmas tree. But there are few things that make me as unenthusiastic as when people over do Christmas; the songs, the lights, the sentimentality, yes, I'm a Grinch like that. That being said, I can tolerate Christmas films, enough so that I have a few of them in my Blu Ray collection, so why not, let's embrace the season with a festive movie review, my mum's favourite Christmas film that I got on Blu Ray for her as a present last Christmas, and that she never even took out of the plastic; The Polar Express.
The Polar Express has a very snappy opening sequence, we never learn the main kid's name, but in this span of a few minutes, we are shown everything we need to know; that he's excited about Christmas, but also that he's putting it together that Santa isn't real. This isn't over done in the slightest, we are shown the evidence as he sees it, cold and honest, and it's very effective for the audience, the film wisely establishes in it's opening that Santa Claus, looking at it logically, makes no sense, which is a great way to start off a fantasy film like this, as not even five minutes in, we get to the Polar Express, revealed absolutely perfectly, with a good amount of wonder, and a dash of suspense. We are then introduced to easily the most entertaining character in the film, the Polar Express' Conductor, who sings about hot chocolate and obsesses about the train getting to its destination on time, what I'll say now is that this film struggles with character depth, with a few exceptions, the majority of the crew are rather basic, and that sadly includes the Conductor, who's draw probably comes mostly from his onscreen presence and the infinite charisma oozing through Tom Hanks' every word, it really is hard not to focus on him whenever he's onscreen. The shallow characterisation carries over to the other nameless kids, mainly a snotty know-it-all who's character is he's snotty, and a girl, who I don't really remember anything about, other than her creepy, super memeable smile, something we'll get back to. Weirdly, one of the most interesting characters in the film is the train's last pick up, a reclusive kid who spends the majority of the film alone in the train's rear car, where he comes from is both literally and figuratively nebulous, but the film heavily implies a troubled family life, one that explains his reclusiveness and his reluctance to fully embrace the spirit of Christmas, something this film does well for the most part is subtlety, and his character is a good example of that. But my favourite character in the film is the Hobo, though, in a twist, I actually think the film did too much with him. Allow me to explain, the film first shows us a Hobo living aboard the train, drinking from a food can next to a makeshift campfire on the roof of the train. But where I think the film let's itself down is in its explicitness that the Hobo is in fact a ghost who haunts the train, maybe I over value subtlety in films, but I do think a bit more subtlety as to how corporeal the hobo was would had added a bit more intrigue to the film. As it stands though, the lonely kid and the hobo are the most intriguing that this film gets, I need to stress that this is not a bad thing, the story presents a cool idea of a magic express train that takes disillusioned kids to the North Pole, which is brilliant on paper, and the adventure the train and it's passengers go on is perilous and entertaining, with a few really badass scenes that I'll get to, but the film is very surface level in a lot of key areas, making it a very easy watch, not an issue on first viewing, but it does hurt its value in repeat viewings.
From a presentation standpoint, this film is a very mixed bag. The animation of the film holds up extremely well in some areas, even for a film from 2004; wide shots of the Polar Express consistently look amazing, little things like lighting and hair and cloth animations are things that stand out to me with how impressively done they are, and I always find myself being wowed by this film's more spectacular moments. The problem doesn't come from the quality of the animation, but rather from the motion capture, of course, this film relied on motion capture performances, and when it's good, it's great, models move like real people, and it's really well done, until you get to their faces. This is where the illusion really starts to break, and these very well animated models slide into the uncanny valley, it gets less noticeable as the film goes on, and it effects some characters more than others, but like I alluded to earlier, when you first see the girl in the film, and she's smiling at the main kid, it looks kind of creepy. This effects the kid characters a lot more than it affects the adult characters, the facial animation on the Conductor for example is really well done in some scenes, but it is something that the film struggles with as a whole, and how bad it is will depend on how much you notice it, or when you notice that sometimes someone will be talking and their faces aren't actually moving, which just doesn't look right. I did however manage to get past the faces, and start appreciating this film's excellent cinematography, of course it's all animated, and some of these camera movements are ones that are only possible with entirely digital images, but a lot of it's really good, which brings me onto the film's action sequences. My favourite scene in the entire film when I was a kid was the scene on the frozen lake, and now, watching it as an adult, yeah, it's still the best scene in the film, in which the Polar Express derails on a frozen lake, and the crew trying to get it back on the tracks before it goes through the ice. This scene is badass, and highlights a lot of what the film gets right, for starters, this scene shows off the quality of the animation and cinematography, as the train slides along the lake, barely under the control of the engineers, the scene is exciting as hell, as they struggle to keep the train moving in a straight line, and something I always love in films, tension, is done really well here, it's just an all round cool scene, it's not the only scene of spectacle, but it's easily the most spectacular of them. It's not the only thing that I love about this film however, I love this film's ending; as the films wraps up, it starts to get mushy, as you'd expect for a Christmas film, but the film then does something unexpected, it uses subtlety, the final twist of the film is wonderfully done, and it embodies the spirit of the film brilliantly, which threw logic out of the window at the 5 minute mark in favour of something that I usually dislike about Christmas films, the magic of Christmas, but in The Polar Express I thought it was really well done.
The Polar Express has it's strengths and it has it's weaknesses; the animation and motion capture looks really good, considering the age, but the quality starts to dip around their faces, understandable, but still something worth pointing out. A greater weakness however is the shallowness of the film's characters, less of a problem for the Conductor and the Hobo, who are decently charismatic, but more of one for the kid characters. The film also starts to get mushy in its ending, but that's really more of a nitpick. The film does however have it's secret weapons, like some really cool action sequences, and an end twist that's really well done. I do get nostalgic about this film, not surprising given that I was 7 when I first saw it, but that doesn't mask it's flaws. Still, I like The Polar Express, it gets a lot right, not just as a Christmas film, but as a film in general, and I'd say that it's worth watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment