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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: The Polar Express (IMAX and regular 35mm)
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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester
Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted 11-06-2004 08:04 AM
I wasn't sure if I should just start a regular Polar Express review, or make this the IMAX 3D specific one; but since a lot of what I have to say deals with the 3D, I'll leave it to others to start a regular one if enough people were lucky enough to see the IMAX version and cared to post here. (If people just want to review the regular version here, I'll adjust the title.)
I wasn't looking forward to this movie and had no real desire to see it. However, I really liked it. It wasn't as slap-you-across-the-face with all the "believe, and everything will be right" stuff that I expected. The sentiment behind that kind of stuff takes a backseat to the main drive of the plot: it's a good, adventure-type, holiday-driven movie. The ending, unavoidably, gets slighly sappy; but that's alright.
It took almost 20 hours to assemble this thing, and every frame I caught of people's faces just creeped me out. However, on screen, the characters were a bit more natural and more "fluid". It's not perfect, but it's not stiff either. Some things were awkward, but the direction worked. Lots of subtle body language movement detail; in some cases, perhaps a bit more distracting than necessary.
I was really impressed with the 3D. Since the original approach to the movie was probably not to showcase 3D, there are no obvious "look, here's something coming at you, this is 3D!!!" shots. Instead, the effect is just to drop you right there and let you Experience the action. The background details are worth looking at all the time. Snow flurries, reflections, anything flying through the air, really: it looks great.
There are lots of quick action sequences: the sliding train, the "roller-coaster" first-person perspectives, and some interesting "camera" fly-by's; which work extremely well in 3D. I would say they out-do all the "roller-coaster" CGI ride movies that IMAX has done before.
The movie does not fill the full aspect of the screen. I'm positive it wasn't DMR'd; it was re-rendered explicitly for 15/70 3D. But it maintains the "scope" matting that all the other Warner Bros. DMR's had. Still, this movie doesn't need to fill all your peripheral vision to be effective. The image is VERY crisp (with NO film grain or digital artifacts that Matrixes or Spiderman 2 had) and brighter on screen than I anticipated, considering the 3D glasses and polarizers which greatly reduce light output.
Very catchy, infectious, typical, holiday-oriented music. I enjoyed the score. Since I watched from the booth I didn't get to experience the sound mix and surround effects as well.
Tom Hanks did a good job, voicing pretty much all the adult male characters (so it seemed), which nicely illustrates the "story-telling" aspect of the book adaptation, in a subtle way.
Anyway, we've got a sneak preview of this later today. Hopefully people will be legitimately impressed, as I was, and hopefully the movie will do well in IMAX.
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 11-09-2004 05:37 AM
This movie is retarded and a huge waste of time. Despite minor things like terrible continuity (for example, note how many cars the train is pulling as it is sliding on ice, and then note the massive quantity of cars the train is pulling as it rolls on into the North Pole), not to mention the poor facial animation vs. the way the dialogue is being voiced, there are other stupid things such as why the passenger cars are suddenly curved when the train goes up a circular mountain, how can the train steer when it is skidding on ice, how did the train magically lock every single car back on the tracks perfectly at the end of the ice scene, and so forth and so on. Now I didn't walk into this movie looking for whether things were "real" or whether the movie was well animated, but by the time I started getting bored with it, that's what I started paying attention to.
Also, with this movie being animated, there is no excuse for it to not have a fantastic soundtrack...but it didn't. It was frequently just loud and sloppily thrown together. I expected more from the mix, but it just had a "Klipsch" sound to it, with no real low end, lots of muddy upper bass and no true clarity. (And no I was not screening this film in an auditorium with Klipsch speakers...it was the same auditorium I screened The Incredibles in with a great sound system.)
It's not a terrible film, and there will be tons of families who will flock to see this film (if for no other reason that there are so few "safe" films to take the family to), so it will certainly do well at the box office. But as for this being a great or even good film, it just isn't there.
2 stars out of 5
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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester
Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted 11-10-2004 03:33 AM
quote: Joe Redifer
The animation looks very disturbing and this movie would give me many nightmares if I were to view this as a child.
That's what I thought based on the trailers alone. Like I said, I had no desire to see it. I'm sure I'll get sick of it soon enough but, after two full viewings, it didn't bug me like I thought it would.
As for all the valid gripes Brad had ... it's a movie about a "magic" train that shows up at your front door to take you to the North Pole! Sure, there are too many things to suspend disbelief over ... but, after all, the whole point is just to forget everything and just BELIEVE!!! Okay, that sounds really lame, I know. And in principle I should hate this movie, too; like I expected to. But I didn't. Go figure. Anything's possible.
[ 11-10-2004, 04:53 AM: Message edited by: Brian Michael Weidemann ]
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