What Kind Of Animation Is Polar Express

Review: 'Polar Express' a creepy ride

Technology brilliant, merely where's the centre and soul?

By Paul Clinton
For CNN.com

	Tom Hanks plays five roles -- including the conductor -- in "The Polar Express."

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- This flavor'south biggest vacation extravaganza, "The Polar Express," should be subtitled "The Dark of the Living Dead." The characters are that frightening.

This is especially disheartening since at that place's so much about this technologically groundbreaking movie -- from Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis and star Tom Hanks -- that'southward astounding.

The overall artwork is remarkable, and the action sequences are inventive and emotionally gripping. Alan Silvestri'southward soundtrack is a musical feast, with selections from everyone from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra to Steven Tyler.

And the pic has a warm Christmas setting, featuring a grouping of Kodak-perfect kids on a magical railroad train trip to the North Pole.

Only those human characters in the film come up across as downright ... well, creepy. So "The Polar Express" is at best disconcerting, and at worst, a wee bit horrifying.

Closed windows

Not live action, and not totally reckoner-generated animation either, "Polar Express" uses move- -- or performance- -- capture technology. This procedure allows a filmmaker to utilize actual human being beings interim out their roles on an empty soundstage, so merges them into a 3-dimensional computer-generated world.

Without getting mired downwardly in technological gobbledygook, this complicated system involves the performers dressing in skintight bodysuits with hundreds of infrared sensors roofing the suits and their faces. These sensors so relay the smallest nuance of movement back to a estimator, where information technology'south all translated into man motion -- and emotion. (The same process was used for Andy Serkis' portrayal of Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings.")

The results are breathtakingly realistic except for two vital facial areas: the within of the mouth and the eyes, where the sensors cannot be placed. Therefore, these areas have to be computer generated. Information technology but doesn't work, and this fact is chosen into sharp relief since the faces of the actors are so incredibly expressive.

To quote an onetime cliche, the eyes are the windows to the soul -- and so these characters look soul dead. When the characters are experiencing extreme emotions, such as fear or surprise, the animation seems to work. But when the characters are still -- and processing information from each other -- they expect lifeless.

To put it another way, you tin can knock, but nobody's dwelling house.

The oral fissure activeness is also less than overwhelming, since the characters' tongues look like slabs of meat when they speak their lines.

A glowing Santa Claus

Santa seems surrounded by a radioactive glow, says critic Paul Clinton.

Zemeckis is a techno nerd with visually groundbreaking films on his resume, including "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "Forrest Gump" and the "Dorsum to the Future" motion picture series. Those films took giant leaps in the fine art of technology, but with "Polar Express," Zemeckis gets an A only for try.

The script is likewise problematic. Zemeckis and co-writer William Broyles Jr. have taken a pop 29-page children's book (written and beautifully illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg) and attempted to flesh it out into a full-fledged feature film. Zemeckis started with the first line from Van Allsburg's book, concluded with the last line, and pretty much filled in all the rest.

There are 5 master characters in the film, none of whom accept names. They are the train conductor and the boy (both played by Hanks), the hero daughter (Nona Gaye), Alone Boy (Peter Scolari, Hanks' former co-star on the TV show "Bosom Buddies"), and Know-It-All Boy (longtime voice-over actor Eddie Deezen).

Each child who boards the Polar Express is theoretically on his or her ain personal spiritual journey; think of them equally the characters in "The Wizard of Oz." Simply with the exception of the Hanks male child, the children'southward personalities or inner conflicts aren't fleshed out plenty for the audition to care.

The film takes itself oh then seriously, too.

In improver to playing the male child and the conductor, Hanks also portrays the boy's male parent, a mysterious hobo and Santa Claus.

Santa Claus gets his very ain category of creepy. In an overzealous try to make Saint Nick look like he has some kind of benevolent inner glow, the filmmakers make him look downright radioactive. It's enough to make yous desire to skip the milk and cookies and don safe gloves and protective habiliment on Christmas Eve.

It'due south a shame. "The Polar Express" wants to be an uplifting vacation motion picture, but it tries besides hard to make its indicate. Moreover, the technology just hasn't caught up to the lofty ambitions of the hundreds of talented people behind this movie. And when it comes to the characters within, the motion-picture show looks similar a remake of "The Children of the Corn."

Better to let the "Express" get on its manner.

"The Polar Express" opens Midweek. It is rated G.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/10/review.polar.express/

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