THE POLAR EXPRESS

Director: Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, Contact, Cast Away, more)
Starring: voices of Tom Hanks, Nona Gaye, Daryl Sabara, more

Not since Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" earlier in the year have I seen a film of such high highs, and such low lows. Parts of this movie are simply spectacular - the sorts of things that we might end up watching every Christmas for the next 50 years. This movie is about Christmas, by the way, and childhood. There are absolutely marvelous visual spectacles in this film. Eclipsing Shrek in many ways, this is easily one the best uses of computer animation to date. As with "The Incredibles" seen yesterday, the animation still has trouble with humans, however. Shrek still wins there. This is one fantastically beautiful movie no doubt about it. It's also surprisingly, and intriguingly dark in places. It's a wonderful ride that I could have confidently labeled a 'classic' film were it not for a few MAJOR problems. #1) This film occasionally loses sight of its timeless story and tries to co-opt some of the silliness in Shrek. Absurdly misplaced in this wonderous film, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith briefly appears as a singing elf at the end of the movie. Goddamn awful, that's what that is. #2) Too many action sequences. The first action sequence is just plain fun. By the fourth, I realize they couldn't figure out what else to do except plug in another action sequence. #3) The film didn't know if it was a musical or not. We start off with a fun (if off key) song about hot chocolate. Then we get only one more complete song the rest of the way. This movie should have plain and simply been a musical. No doubt about it. #4) That other complete song sucked. With the rest of the film backed by classics Christmas songs, plus the fun hot chocolate song, the main musical number was trite crap. Blah. #5) The movie's chief message was dumb. The point of the film was to believe in things even if you can't prove them. That Santa Claus (and by default God) can't be seen, but they're still there. Realize that I view this as a morally offensive bit of thematic material. Now with all of this negativity against this movie, how could I have claimed this to be nearly a classic. You'll have to see the visuals, and mysterious dark tone, and the strange wonderment of it all to appreciate it. What's more, I believe in the power of the imagination, just not the power of self delusion - it's a fine line that I think this movie crossed. So far, this is both the most wonderful, and the most disappointing film of 2004. Of course, it's only disappointing because it was so wonderful in the first place.

Standouts: Animation, direction, tone, art, strange timeless story.
Blowouts: Steven ... freaking ... Tyler? What were you thinking Zemekis?

Grade: A