Polar Express

Does this movie look mind numbingly boring or does it just have bad trailers?

 

Yes and yes. Also, the animation looks just a bit creepy to me. I've seen the trailer a few times & it just makes me a tad uncomfortable. Don't know why I have such knee jerk reaction to it.

-BZync

 

The book (like Jumanji, by the same author) definitely has a creepy element to it. Which makes it more entertaining for adults but less appropriate for young children. I'm very curious about the movie.

 

The trailer has been freaking out everyone I know. Sorry to say, but this one's gonna bomb.

Funny thing was, when I was out to theater over the weekend, as I was buying tix for The Grudge, the old couple in front of me wanted tickets for Polar Express and they were disappointed to learn that it wasn't out yet.

 

I just read the New York Times' review of the movie, which the reviewer called "a grave and disappointing failure." Here's an excerpt that addresses the creepiness issue and compares the movie's depiction of Santa's sack of toys to a part of the male anatomy:



I suspect that most moviegoers care more about stories and characters than how much money it took for a digitally rendered strand of hair to flutter persuasively in the wind. Nor will they care that to make "Polar Express" Tom Hanks wore a little cap that transmitted a record of his movements to a computer, creating templates for five different animated characters.

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.

 

The IMAX 3D version is getting pretty decent reviews.
Friends of mine saw it last Saturday at the IMAX at Pallisades Mall. There were sneak previews last Saturday nationwide.

 

I'll probably pass on this movie as well. Still have to see The Incredibles and must see the new SpongeBob Movie.

 

Actually, I hope it flops. Its $165 million budget is just ridiculous.

 

It just sounds like somebody got too impressed with some new computer technology (that's not quite ready yet) to realize that you could make a much better movie using actual actors.

I hear the facial expressions throughout the flick are zombie city.

 

Jack Matthews of the NY Daily News gives it 3 1/2 stars after seeing it at a 3D IMAX screen in NYC.

This is the way to see this movie for fellow NYers.

He called it "breathtaking".

I usually plan a trip into the City with the kids for Christmas, so this
may be a good way to spend 2 hours after seeing the Rockerfeller Tree.

 

Yep, if I see this at all it'll be in 3-D.

 

Interesting dichotomy of reviews. On one side reviewers such as Ebert call it a modern masterpiece (with the creepiness intended and appropriate), on the other there's the NYT view that it's just plain dumb and creepy.

John K.

 

For whatever it's worth, the book itself won a Caldecott Medal, awarded annually by the American Library Association for the best children's illustrated book of the year.

(I know this because I always make a point of watching who wins the Caldecott each year, ever since I discovered how many of my own childhood favorites, and my siblings', had received it: Make Way For Ducklings, Where The Wild Things Are, The Snowy Day, The Funny Little Woman, Sam Bangs & Moonshine, etc.)

 

The beauty of the book (apart from the illustrations) is that much of it is open to the interpretation of the reader; imagination plays as much part in the enjoyment as the concreteness of the pictures. The problem I see with the movie is that to pad it out for 97 minutes they have to make it all concrete, removing imagination and that which made it special in the first place.

John K.

 

Go see the IMAX 3-D version. It looks amazing. Huge, clear, spacious and larger than life. I started to stuffer from sensory overload at one point. Truly the most effective 3-D movie I've ever seen.

The flick itself is pretty entertaining except for the lull that comes with the Santa scene towards the end and a few creepy looking elves, but until then you get a pretty nice movie.

I just wonder how many scenes were re-composed for the 3-D presentation. Seems to me there were a lot of poking-out-at-you type of shots. Anyone read about this?

 

I drove up to Irvine from San Diego to see it in 3-D. It looks wonderful.

Show up early and get in line so you can sit in the middle of the theater.

I was very very impressed in the way it looked.

As for the movie, I thought the plot was shmaltzy and Steven Tyler shoudl not have been in it.

On the other hand I thought the animated characters looked great and Eddie Deezen is making his come back.

-Tom

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm

 

I'll never understand this point of view. The same thing was said about the movie "1941" and for that matter, "River Deep, Mountain High" - the former a hysterical extravaganza, and the latter a gigantic recording!

I just don't get it, that's all.

 

Eddie Deezen is in 1941 AND Polar Express.

 

From the Eddie Deezen bio:

* FAVORITE MARX BROTHER: Harpo

I think I have the nerd gene in me somewhere.

 

I saw it with my children (ages 6 and 4) yesterday. We all liked it very much. The creepy feel is true though I think because it is something between animation and real people. It does convey the look of the books artwork very well from what I can remember from the book.
If you have kids I can recommend it. It has some spooky parts but not too bad some points really got the kids on the edge of their seats but everything works out naturally.

 

I'm actually scheduled to see this on Dec. 7 with my daughter's 4th grade class at the IMAX in Dearborn.

 

I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE BEATLES!

 

I saw this with my two Grandchildren last night & I thought it was a masterpiece. The youngest girl is seven & she was pretty bored with it, but the older one is nine & she loved it. If you check Rottentomatoes.com, it seems to be 50/50, you love it or hate it.

 

Santa Claus is Alan Rickman. Looks like him and sounds like him. A skinny Santa who looks and sounds like the terrorist in Die Hard. Movie lost me there.

Wait a minute. It actually lost me with the "Hot Chocolate" song and dance sequence. Nerve grating visually and orally.

And yes, the movie is creepy!

 

Hope he doesn't say ...."nice suit....John Phillips....I have one myself" !