The Polar Express

My wife and I took the kids (11, 9 and 6) to The Polar Express yesterday. The book is one of our favorite Christmas stories and the film did not disappoint anyone in our family. This despite the fact that I had read a number of reviews that were very unflattering (see below) and heard some of the story line - musical numbers, in Polar Express?

It was hard to imagine taking a 32 page children's book - mostly filled with illustration - and turning it into a full length feature that wouldn't travel too far from the authors theme. The movie, with the exception of the hobo and the 'ticket imagery', stayed pretty close.

Most of the negative reviews at Rottentomatoes address the 'lifeless' characters and the technology details. I find that somewhat ironic, because the I think the artwork of the movie came very close to the illustration in the book. The characters in the book always seemed 'lifeless' and surreal. Maybe like in a dream - not reality? In addition, the 'darkness' of the North Pole and other images - including the 'theme-park roller coaster' the film adds, presents the message of the story: The struggle between 'believing' and not.

One of the oddest reviews is the NYT's review. This excerpt is way over the top:

It's likely, I imagine, that most moviegoers will be more concerned by the eerie listlessness of those characters' faces and the grim vision of Santa Claus's North Pole compound, with interiors that look like a munitions factory and facades that seem conceived along the same oppressive lines as Coketown, the red-brick town of "machinery and tall chimneys" in Dickens's "Hard Times." Tots surely won't recognize that Santa's big entrance in front of the throngs of frenzied elves and awe-struck children directly evokes, however unconsciously, one of Hitler's Nuremberg rally entrances in Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." But their parents may marvel that when Santa's big red sack of toys is hoisted from factory floor to sleigh it resembles nothing so much as an airborne scrotum.

'Munitions factories', 'Hitler's Nuremberg' from Riefenstahl and 'scrotums'? This guy needs to get a grip. He must have had a very troubling childhood! If he expresses the east-coast intelligentsia point of view, there really are two Americas!

Later in the review, he suggests that an 8 year old (age of the boy in the story) is a little old to be 'pinning his hopes' on Santa. As a 43 year old, I take offense to that statement. My oldest kids are starting to make the transition from believing in Santa, to - what I think is even better - believing in the spirit of Santa. Maybe the world would be a little better place if we all lightened up, looked for the good in others instead of the bad, and acknowledged that sometimes, it's okay to BELIEVE!

UPDATE: I apologize to the NYTs reviewer. She is a woman, not a man. She is still wrong in her opinion of the movie, but I was incorrect when I suggested "he get a grip" and that "he must have had a troubling childhood". Please replace he with she!
Also, while the readers of the Times have a more favorable opinion of the movie and by and large feel the same spirit of the movie as I, there are still a few who obsess on the fact that the animation is lifeless and doesn't stand up to Gollum in LOTR. Let me say this: It's not suppose to!