Review: The Polar Express
While it received plenty of mixed reviews, the critics failed to mention is was a children’s movie only. There’s only one theme going on, believing in Santa Clause, and keeping hammering on this will not retain any adult’s attention. You can’t fill a movie with sappy dialogue all the time, so in between, you’ll get the “adventure” feeling by all the mishaps that can happen on a magical train. By the third time this gets boring, but the visual galore that will ensue will have the kids gaping in awe. By now, still an hour to go, you’ve lost hope. No humor, no sensible dialogue, no depth. Even scrutinising the 3D animation, in this case called performance capturing, isn’t necessary, as the stiffness in movement reveals the capturing wasn’t that successful after all.
Even when I discard the skewed feeling I have towards this movie (a focus on the overall greater good, instead of just a plain white bearded Santa Clause would’ve been nice), it’s still a movie that falls short on every aspect of making it enjoyable.5+.