DVD Movie Rating for: Polar Express

Rating for Polar Express: 5 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: Polar Express

The Polar Express, an inspiring adventure based on the beloved Caldecott Medal children's book by Chris Van Allsburg.

A young boy lies awake in his room one snowy Christmas Eve, excited and alert.

Breathing silently. Hardly moving. Waiting.

He's listening for a sound he's afraid that he might never hear ñ the ringing bells of Santa's sleigh.

The time is five minutes to midnight.

Suddenly, the boy is startled by a thunderous roar. Clearing the mist from his window he sees the most amazing sight: a gleaming black train rumbles to a stop right in front of his house, the steam from its powerful engine hissing through the night sky and the softly falling snowflakes.

The boy rushes outside, clad only in his pajamas and slippers, and is met by the train's conductor who seems to be waiting just for him.

"Well, are you coming?" the conductor asks.

"Where?"

"Why, to the North Pole, of course. This is the Polar Express!"

This holiday season the Academy Award-winning team of Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) reunite for The Polar Express, an inspiring adventure based on the beloved Caldecott Medal children's book by Chris Van Allsburg.

When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.

Combining classic storytelling with cutting-edge filmmaking, The Polar Express debuts a highly advanced version of motion capture technology developed and tailored to meet Zemeckis' uncompromising vision and is the first feature ever to be shot entirely in this format.

Sony Pictures Imageworks, with senior visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston, a five-time Oscar winner, and Jerome Chen, a 2000 nominee, help bring this enchanting holiday story vividly to life in full CG animation through a brand new system called Performance Capture, Imageworks' next-generation motion capture process. This innovative technique allows the actors' live-action performances to drive the emotions and movements of the digital characters in a way never seen before, throwing open the door to a whole new era of freedom and creative options for actors and filmmakers.

Castle Rock Entertainment presents, in association with Shangri-La Entertainment, a Playtone / ImageMovers / Golden Mean Production of a Robert Zemeckis Film: Tom Hanks in The Polar Express. Directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Zemeckis & William Broyles, Jr., the film is produced by Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis, Gary Goetzman and William Teitler and is based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg. Tom Hanks, Jack Rapke and Chris Van Allsburg are the executive producers.

The production team includes directors of photography Don Burgess, A.S.C. and Robert Presley; production designers Rick Carter and Doug Chiang; and editors Jeremiah O'Driscoll & R. Orlando Duenas. Senior visual effects supervisors are Ken Ralston and Jerome Chen. Co-producer is Steven Boyd. Music score is by Alan Silvestri, and original songs by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri. Costumes designed by Joanna Johnston.

DVD Production Details of: Polar Express

Polar Express is not yet released on DVD

DVD Extra Bonus Features

None

Cast of the movie: Polar Express

• Tom Hanks .... Hero Boy/Father/Conductor/Hobo/Scrooge/Santa Claus
• Leslie Harter Zemeckis .... Sister Sarah/Mother (as Leslie Zemeckis)
• Eddie Deezen .... Know-It-All
• Nona M. Gaye .... Hero Girl (as Nona Gaye)
• Peter Scolari .... Lonely Boy
• Brendan King .... Pastry Chef
• Andy Pellick .... Pastry Chef
• Josh Eli .... Waiter
• Mark Mendonca .... Waiter
• Rolandas Hendricks .... Waiter
• Mark Goodman .... Waiter
• Jon Scott .... Waiter
• Gregory Gast .... Waiter
• Sean Scott .... Waiter
• Gordon Hart .... Waiter
• Michael Jeter .... Smokey/Steamer
• Chris Coppola .... Toothless Boy/Elf
• Julene Renee .... Red Head Girl/Elf
• Charles Fleischer .... Elf General
• Steven Tyler .... Elf Lieutenant/Elf Singer
• Phil Fondacaro .... Elf
• Debbie Lee Carrington .... Elf
• Mark Povinelli .... Elf
• Ed Gale .... Elf
• Dante Pastula .... Little Boy
• Daryl Sabara .... Voice performer: Hero Boy (voice)
• André Sogliuzzo .... Voice performer: Smokey & Steamer (voice)
• Jimmy Bennett .... Voice performer: Lonely Boy (voice)
• Isabella Peregrina .... Voice performer: Sister Sarah (voice)
• Eric Newton .... Acrobatic Elf
• Aidan O'Shea .... Acrobatic Elf
• Aaron Hendry .... Acrobatic Elf
• Kevin C. Carr .... Acrobatic Elf
• Bee Jay Joyer .... Acrobatic Elf
• Jena Carpenter .... Acrobatic Elf
• Karine Mauffrey .... Acrobatic Elf
• Beth Carpenter .... Acrobatic Elf
• Bill Forchion .... Acrobatic Elf
• Devin Henderson .... Acrobatic Elf
• Sagiv Ben-Binyamin .... Acrobatic Elf
• Josh Hutcherson .... Additional child perfomer: Hero Boy
• Ashly Holloway .... Additional child perfomer: Sister Sarah
• Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak .... Additional child perfomer: Know-It-All
• Chantel Valdivieso .... Additional child perfomer: Hero Girl
• Hayden McFarland .... Additional child perfomer: Lonely Boy
• Connor Matheus .... Additional child perfomer: Toothless
• Evan Sabara .... Additional child perfomer: Young Boy

Photo Gallery of the movie: Polar Express

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Polar Express Photo Gallery

Reviews of the movie: Polar Express

Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express is the perfect Christmas movie gift: spectacularly wrapped although a bit gaudy, full of thrills, surprises and the best elements of commercializing the holiday. As portrayed here, the only reason for the season - and only that season because Hanukkahand Kwanzaa are ignored despite an African-American character and a dash of Yiddish - is believing in Santa Claus and all that he embodies.

The secular tone and singular focus of Zemeckis' movie isn't a flaw, just something to be noted after the deluge of yuletide cheer displayed by The Polar Express. Some of the original songs in the movie? Now there's a flaw. But not a fatal one by any stretch of your imagination because Zemeckis and an army of technicians stretched theirs so far.

This is a truly amazing piece of work, an animated film that looks like real action (and actors). The Polar Express passes both primary tests of imaginative animation: The movie's action and the world in which it occurs would be fantastic in real-life form; and it couldn't be done in real life.

That is, except for Tom Hanks' performance - literally - as conductor of The Polar Express, a train that annually picks up children losing their faith in Santa Claus and proves to them that he exists. He also plays a hobo, a father figure and Santa, each differently but with that physical hint of Hanks that no makeup could hide.

Using an improved computer-generated technique called performance capture, Tom Hanks looks (and of course, sounds) like he always does on screen. The darting eyes, puffed cheeks and gestures that are so familiar are "drawn" using his movements. It isn't the cartoon effect of rotoscoping, as in Waking Life, or the bland replication of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but a new alternate screen reality. Zemeckis could have easily inserted a live Tom Hanks into animated action, like in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But why add distinct realism to such a completely magical palette?

Other performances are culled from the physical acts of adults (Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari) playing children, with real children (Daryl Sabara, Jimmy Bennett) adding their voices. Some grownups (Nona Gaye, Eddie Deezen) handle both duties. The combinations are seamless and, with the exception of Santa's elves and a pair of clumsy engine workers, astonishingly real.

It should go without saying that the backdrops for these performances are superbly rendered, because the hard part of reproducing humans has been done so well. But Zemeckis and co-screenwriter William Broyles Jr. don't settle just for pretty backdrops, preferring to set up challenging detours. The loss of a treasured ticket becomes a marvelous flight - reminiscent of the feather in Zemeckis' Forrest Gump - as it blows through a snowstorm and wolf packs, into an eagle's talons and her eaglet's mouth, then is spit out to form a snowball that sends it back where it belongs. Santa's toy factory, complete with the size of gift sack we always expected the old guy would need but never saw before, is a maze of kinetic obstacles.

That kind of action sometimes plays like a blueprint for a video game, yet the overall purity of The Polar Express can make cynics reconsider. Purists may scoff at Zemeckis pumping up the adventure of Chris Van Allsburg's Caldecott Medal-winning children's book. Admittedly, at times The Polar Express resembles Willy Wonka on steroids. Whereas Van Allsburg describes the course of a train bound for the North Pole as a roller coaster, Zemeckis turns the screen into one, not once but three times.

Then there are sequences that are fancifully original, especially a troupe of tap-dancing waiters delivering hot chocolate to Polar Express passengers while moving to a big band beat. Or a treacherous train skid on cracking ice, or any of the other crises that could make Indiana Jones hide his eyes.

The moments to treasure, however, are quieter, if composer Alan Silvestri eases the throttle on his sentimental score. The last passenger picked up, a shy kid from the wrong side of the tracks, becomes a running tragedy that ends with tear-duct-flooding goodness. The symbol of disbelief in Santa Claus - deafness to the sound of sleigh bells - is so simple and sweet that sobbing will be a common moviegoer response.

Ultimately, that is the triumph of The Polar Express, the fact that its state of the art execution and breakneck action never overshadows the moving, fragile core of Van Allsburg's story. Calling The Polar Express an instant holiday classic is an understatement. This is a movie for all seasons.

The first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes of Robert Zemeckis' digital banquet The Polar Express draw inspiration from Chris Van Allsburg's wonderful Christmas novel of the same name. Beginning with the late-night arrival of the pinch-me-I'm-dreaming locomotive and ending with the narrator's ringing of a symbolic bell, these whimsical bookend scenes find the perfect holiday ambiance that wraps us in a cozy blanket of adolescent wonder.

Bridging the film's beautiful opening and closing, though, are 77 minutes of exhaustive, roller coaster-worthy action sequences, death-defying skids across frozen lakes and approximately 15 harrowing occasions where the beloved Polar Express is inches away from jumping its tracks and killing everybody on board. It's Van Allsburg by way of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it just doesn't fit the initial warm-and-fuzzy mood.

Introducing a pioneering and sorta creepy form of digital filmmaking dubbed "performance capture," in which the film was shot with live actors wearing special sensors which were later matched by computer animators, director Robert Zemeckis pumps vigor into a relatively subdued and simple story of a young boy invited to the North Pole to reinstate his fading belief in Santa Claus (voiced by a solemn Tom Hanks). Van Allsburg's original narration is a piece of Americana that's culled from children's dream on the most delightful night of the calendar year - Christmas Eve.

Zemeckis, a filmmaker recognized more for the technological advancements he's brought to the medium, reaches deep into his special effects stocking and pulls out a visual masterpiece that's as frigid as a lump of coal and as delectable as a fruit cake. As expected, Zemeckis pours his efforts into the groundbreaking animation to create an expressive art form that's light years ahead of the competition. On the emotional side, Polar falls flat and pulls up woefully short on genuine yuletide cheer. You get the sense that Zemeckis would rather perfect the breathtaking journey of a lost train ticket, which floats and soars like Forrest Gump's feather along the twisty tracks, than craft an accurate human response to a child's face-to-face with St. Nick.

The director's ramped-up contributions overshadow the book's inherent message about losing our childhood innocence. The Polar padding includes, but is by no means limited to, the motivational ramblings of a stowaway (Hanks) who may or may not be a ghost, bungee-jumping elves, and insufferable musical numbers about hot chocolate sung by a wooden conductor (Hanks, again).

A lonely lad (voiced by perpetual Bosom Buddy Peter Scolari) sits by himself in the train's caboose until he's required to break into a sappy holiday tune, which morphs into a duet with the sassy African-American girl on board. Their gooey selection is marginally better then the theme park-cheesy jingles that pervade the soundtrack once the Express finally pulls into Santa's headquarters. You're better off picking up Van Allsburg's delightful book this season, and leaving the rest to your own imagination.

a dazzling addition to the lately lackluster canon of Christmas tales.

Devoid of 21st-century irony, this visually stunning, action-packed yuletide treat is sweet and, yes, magical in a way that will enchant kids and give older viewers a twinge of nostalgia.

The computer-animated film - which reunites the Oscar-winning team of Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump") - is also an astounding technical achievement, the first feature shot entirely using whiz-bang motion-capture technology.

The technique - in which sensors attached to actors' faces and bodies record their movements, which are then animated - is not 100 percent successful.

There's something creepy about the humans' faces, particularly the hollow eyes.

But the digital animation allows the creation of beautiful vistas and outstanding sequences that could never be achieved with live action.

"The Polar Express" is based on Chris Van Allsburg's bestseller about a boy's dwindling belief in Santa Claus, and the movie's look owes a lot to Van Allsburg's drawings.

Despite the state-of-the-art technology, the film often suggests a retro children's book come to life, and the vintage recordings of Christmas favorites by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby on the soundtrack also lend a comforting old-fashioned feel.

The story itself is simple: Hero Boy is awakened Christmas Eve by a magical locomotive and urged to hop aboard by an avuncular but punctilious conductor (voiced by Tom Hanks, who nimbly voices a host of other characters, including Hero Boy, the Hobo and Santa).

The Polar Express is headed to the North Pole, carrying a bunch of kids to a big celebration at which Santa will hand out the first present of Christmas.

Much of the film is set aboard the train, where Hero Boy befriends confident young Hero Girl (voiced by Nona Gaye) and a shy little boy from the wrong side of the tracks (Peter Scolari).

As the express hurtles through snow and ice, Zemeckis stages a number of breathtaking scenes in which Hero Boy train-surfs and clambers all over the engine as it swoops down hill and up dale with roller-coaster queasiness.

There's also a bravura sequence following a golden ticket as it swirls in the wind, chased by arctic wolves and carried aloft by an eagle.

Like a number of these scenes, it does little to advance the story - but you won't be thinking about that as you pick your jaw up off the floor.

The North Pole, too, is a feast for the eyes - a Willy Wonka-esque realm filled with prancing reindeer, presents on conveyor belts and a rock-star Santa with thousands of elves.

"It's everything I dreamed it would be," Hero Girl breathes, and she could be speaking for all Christmas movie fans starved for a certified new classic.

"The Polar Express" has the quality of a lot of lasting children's entertainment: It's a little creepy. Not creepy in an unpleasant way, but in that sneaky, teasing way that lets you know eerie things could happen. There's a deeper, shivery tone, instead of the mindless jolliness of the usual Christmas movie. This one creates a world of its own, like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Willy Wonka," in which the wise child does not feel too complacent.

Those who know the Chris Van Allsburg book will feel right at home from the opening moments, which quote from the story: "On Christmas Eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed ..." The young hero, who is never given a name, is listening for the sound of sleigh bells ringing. He is at just the age when the existence of Santa Claus is up for discussion.

The look of the film is extraordinary, a cross between live action and Van Allsburg's artwork. Robert Zemeckis, the same director whose "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" juxtaposed live action with animation, this time merges them, using a process called "performance capture," in which human actors perform the movements which are translated into lifelike animation. The characters in "Polar Express" don't look real, but they don't look unreal, either; they have a kind of simplified and underlined reality that makes them visually magnetic. Many of the body and voice performances are by Tom Hanks, who is the executive producer and worked with Zemeckis on "Forrest Gump" (1994) - another film that combined levels of reality and special effects.

The story: As Hero Boy lies awake in bed, there is a rumble in the street and a passenger train lumbers into view. The boy runs outside in his bathrobe and slippers, and the conductor advises him to get onboard. Having refused to visit a department store Santa, having let his little sister put out Santa's milk and cookies, Hero Boy is growing alarmingly agnostic on the Santa question, and the Polar Express apparently shuttles such kids to the North Pole, where seeing is believing.

Already on board is Hero Girl, a solemn and gentle African-American, who becomes the boy's friend, and also befriends Lonely Boy, who lives on the wrong side of the tracks and always seems sad. Another character, Know It All, is one of those kids who can't supply an answer without sounding obnoxious about it. These four are the main characters, in addition to the conductor, a hobo who lives on top of the train, Santa, and countless elves.

There's an interesting disconnect between the movie's action and its story. The action is typical thrill-ride stuff, with the Polar Express careening down a "179-degree grade" and racing through tunnels with a half-inch of clearance, while Hero Boy and the Hobo ski the top of the train to find safety before the tunnel. At the North Pole, there's another dizzying ride when the kids spin down a corkscrewing toy chute.

Those scenes are skillful, but expected. Not expected is a dazzling level of creativity in certain other scenes. Hero Girl's lost ticket, for example, flutters through the air with as much freedom as the famous floating feather at the start of "Forrest Gump."

Santa, in this version, is a good and decent man, matter-of-fact and serious: a professional man, doing his job.

"The Polar Express" is a movie for more than one season; it will become a perennial, shared by the generations. It has a haunting magical quality because it has imagined its world freshly and played true to it, sidestepping all the tiresome Christmas cliches that children have inflicted on them this time of year. The conductor tells Hero Boy he thinks he really should get on the train, and I have the same advice for you