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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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The Polar Express (G) I have never read the supposedly classic children's book, The Polar Express, on which this multi-role Tom Hanks vehicle was based. And after watching the movie, my mind is divided as to whether doing so would be a good thing. If the book is a warmer, less antiseptically pristine take on the same Christmas Eve, perpetually 11:55 PM journey aboard a fantastical train to visit Santa and his elves (Mrs. Claus, where are you?), let me have at it. If it is as visually creepy and emotionally uninvolving as this unnecessarily semi-computer-animated experiment in visual sumptuousness, I'll go without, thanks. The titular locomotive, conducted by Hanks in his most Hanks-looking character, takes kiddies in need of life and Santa-related lessons to a North Pole rendezvous with Ol' St,. Nick and his minions. Because kids are kids, and in order to pad a ridiculously simple story about a ride to and from the top of Earth, merriment, distractions and dangers ensue among what look to be circa late-1950s American children. The first stumbling block along the way is the eerie animation process wherein human (and animal?) filmed movements are rendered into shiny computer animation. The prancing of reindeer and stampede of caribou are stunning but the lack of wrinkles in anybody's fingers is unnerving. Is this a reverence to science fiction TV show The Invaders, where small clues gave away the aliens masquerading as humans in order to attack the planet? It appears the aliens have re-configured themselves and they are on The Polar Express. Secondly, there IS a lot of padding in what's really a simple story. The source material is only 32 heavily-illustrated pages. The aforementioned caribou stampede, the dancing waiters with the hot chocolate, etc. ...who gives a whit? Subplots involving a maladjusted, possibly poor little boy (voiced by Peter Scolari, Hanks' old Bosom Buddies partner in drag); a smart aleck kid who remains dislikable despite the journey; a sweet Afrimerican lass, played by Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin and erstwhile R & B singer in her own right; merely fill more time than interest. But Hanks loved reading The Polar Express to his children and his voice is all over the place in this fascinatingly misbegotten wreck. Most creepily, he voices the story's hero who learns to believe in the jolly old fat guy with a chimney fetish. Most oddly, he takes to the role of a hobo who rides the top of the train and sounds patterned after early Tom Waits. Most strangely, Hanks' Santa is a rather stoic and stodgy old dude, dispensing advice to the kiddies in a borderline monotone without the merest hint of a smile. If that's the man with the Christmas gifts, I'll celebrate Kwaanza, thank you. There is no mention of Jesus as the reason for the holiday, yet this movie is being pitched to Christian media for its family-friendliness, positive morality, etc. My impression, is that youngsters will react to Express with as wide a range of variations as those they reserved for clowns:some love 'em, and others are deathly afraid. When I was a child, the Nowhere
Man in Yellow Submarine frightened and saddened me; I'd hate to
be the same age and have a parent drag me to this woeful cinematic experiment.
Oh, the potential nightmares!
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