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Letter to the editor

All aboard for a memorable ride

By STEVE PERSALL
Published November 9, 2004

[Photos: Warner Bros. Pictures]

Tom Hanks, as the conductor, in a facial-dot reference image, left, in The Polar Express. That image was used to match to an expression for a final animated rendering, right.

	The rich illustrations in The Polar Express served as an inspiration for the ground-breaking computer animation of the movie version.
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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 Hanukkah and 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, 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 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 (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.

Grade: A

The Polar Express

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Voices of Tom Hanks, Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Michael Jeter, Eddie Deezen

Screenplay: Robert Zemeckis, William Broyles Jr., based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg

Rating: G; perilous sequences

Running time: 100 min.

[Last modified November 9, 2004, 15:37:27]