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Roger Ebert "The Polar Express" Review: compares to Oz and Chocolate Factory

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Alcibiades

Alcibiades

Member
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041109/REVIEWS/41006005

****

"The Polar Express" is a movie for more than one season; it will become a perennial, shared by the generations. It has a haunting, magical quality because it has imagined its world freshly and played true to it, sidestepping all the tiresome Christmas cliches that children have inflicted on them this time of year. The conductor tells Hero Boy he thinks he really should get on the train, and I have the same advice for you.
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-apparently it doesn't talk down to children and it a masterful in many ways...

I haven't looked foward to a movie since probably summer, but this one I'm interested in seeing now... when I get back home in December I'll ask my parents to take the family to see it, we really enjoyed Elf last year, and this movie should entertain for the holiday season...
 
S

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
too bad the CG charachters look very stiff in the ads.. I still want to see it, but its like watching planks of wood almost.
 
T

teiresias

Member
I've read alot of impressions from people that have seen it, and while they like the film's premise and storytelling they find the animation rather subpar, mainly saying the characters have glazed or "dead" eyes and compare the emoting power of the human CG to that of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - hardly a good sign. Some have gone so far as to call the effect "creepy."
 
P

Prospero

Member
The New York Times reviewer ripped the hell out of this movie today in a two-page article.

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. [...] 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.
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It's worth noting that two important contributors to "The Polar Express," Doug Chiang, one of the production designers, and Ken Ralston, the film's senior visual effects supervisor, worked for years at Mr. Lucas's aptly named company, Industrial Light and Magic. There's no way of knowing whether they drank the company Kool-Aid. Still, from the looks of "The Polar Express" it's clear that, together with Mr. Zemeckis, this talented gang has on some fundamental level lost touch with the human aspect of film.
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F

FortNinety

Member
Sorry, but there is no review in the world that's going to get my ass into a seat to watch a Tom Hank ego-trip/the creepiest fucking CGI in the world.
 
O

olimario

Banned
Ebert and Roper give good reviews to too many shit movies.
I don't trust a damn word they say.

The Polar Express looks horrible. Absolutely horrible.
 
H

human5892

Queen of Denmark
olimario said:
Ebert and Roper give good reviews to too many shit movies.
I don't trust a damn word they say.

The Polar Express looks horrible. Absolutely horrible.
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I agree. Roeper seems to like anything mainstream with explosions and cool guns, while Ebert tends to give out way too many high marks for anything that is even remotely indepedent, regardless of quality.
 
T

teiresias

Member
From the review on CNN:

Santa Claus gets his very own category of creepy. In an overzealous effort 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 you want to skip the milk and cookies and don rubber gloves and protective clothing on Christmas Eve.
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G

ge-man

Member
Ebert is very much a fan of highly visual filmmaking--almost to a fault in some cases. I don't know if that's the case here, but it wouldn't be the first time that he really went against the grain because of his tastes.
 
J

Jill Sandwich

the turds of Optimus Prime
montymole.gif
 
K

Kabuki Waq

Member
ge-man said:
Ebert is very much a fan of highly visual filmmaking--almost to a fault in some cases. I don't know if that's the case here, but it wouldn't be the first time that he really went against the grain because of his tastes.
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He gave the Cell 4 stars!!!!?!
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
Ebert really likes movies with a distinctive visual flair.

The Cell is one, Dark City is another. Oh yeah, he liked the ending to Fear dot Com because of the visuals.

Anaconda deserved 3 stars for Jon Voights downright over the top silly performance. Without him the movie would have been hard to watch, he elevated it to camp.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Can't say I have an interest, at least not in what Zemeckis wants us to be interested in. I'm rather curious about the Hitler parallels as I've seen them mentioned in a couple reviews now. The creepy faces and the ridiculous action sequences just don't make this appealing to me in any form.
 
C

Christoff Yurievich

Member
if they wanted Tom Hanks, they should have used Tom Hanks and not a digital reproduction of Tom Hanks.

when I first heard of this film I thought it was going to be entirely CG with actual human characters, not CG human characters.
 
P

pestul

Member
Wow.. the early praise derailed so quickly in this thread. :O

The trailer in front of The Incredibles wasn't too bad.. the animation even looked better than some of the other footage I had seen. That said, I still have no interest in spending $10 on the film.
 
D

Doth Togo

Member
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/10/review.polar.express/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- This season's biggest holiday extravaganza, "The Polar Express," should be subtitled "The Night of the Living Dead." The characters are that frightening.

"The Polar Express" wants to be an uplifting holiday film, but it tries too hard to make its point. Moreover, the technology just hasn't caught up to the lofty ambitions of the hundreds of talented people behind this film. And when it comes to the characters within, the film looks like a remake of "The Children of the Corn."

Owned.

:lol
 
Alcibiades

Alcibiades

Member
Doth Togo said:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/10/review.polar.express/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- This season's biggest holiday extravaganza, "The Polar Express," should be subtitled "The Night of the Living Dead." The characters are that frightening.

"The Polar Express" wants to be an uplifting holiday film, but it tries too hard to make its point. Moreover, the technology just hasn't caught up to the lofty ambitions of the hundreds of talented people behind this film. And when it comes to the characters within, the film looks like a remake of "The Children of the Corn."
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I haven't seen the movie, but based of what I read, it's goal is to separate itself from the normal super-joy Christmas movie cliche...

Even Ebert said there was a haunting quality too it, but I guess some people just aren't open to change going in with expectations of a happy holiday film...
 
R

Ristamar

Member
teiresias said:
...they find the animation rather subpar, mainly saying the characters have glazed or "dead" eyes and compare the emoting power of the human CG to that of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - hardly a good sign. Some have gone so far as to call the effect "creepy."
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I saw the HBO First Look segment, and it did remind me of Final Fantasy which has me worried.

Warm Machine said:
Ebert really likes movies with a distinctive visual flair.

The Cell is one, Dark City is another. Oh yeah, he liked the ending to Fear dot Com because of the visuals.
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The Cell was mediocre at best, but Dark City was the shit.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll see Polar Express, but I'll keep an open mind... even if the character animation looks like it's straight out of the Final Fantasy flick, it can't possibly be worse than that piece of garbage.
 
A

Azih

Member
Theo: Tim Burton's a Nightmare before Christmas says YES.



Even though that's not puppets...


.. what's my point again?
 
L

levious

That throwing stick stunt of yours has boomeranged on us.
it's almost like they tried to make the characters look like storybook cutouts... but why waste all the time and resources to motion capture with the voice actors. Probably a poor decision, and the combo is probably what makes everything look awkward.
 
B

BigGreenMat

Member
From what I have heard from Hanks and the creators. One of the reasons they did this movie is because of the original artwork with the book. The artwork was sort of creepy and 'haunting'. Anyway we will see how the movie does.
 
B

belgurdo

Banned
If this movie had "Pixar" in the credits, you'd be jizzing all over it. Instead it's "creepy" because it's not the same cartoonish looking bullshit that every company is pumping out right now
 
O

olimario

Banned
belgurdo said:
If this movie had "Pixar" in the credits, you'd be jizzing all over it. Instead it's "creepy" because it's not the same cartoonish looking bullshit that every company is pumping out right now
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No.
'Cars' has Pixar on it and people aren't jizzing all over that. TAKES THE WHEELS OUT FROM UNDER YOUR BASELESS THEORY, DOESN'T IT!?!?!

It's creepy because the CGI isn't up to snuff with current films. It's creepy because all of the human characters are too stiff... too robotic.
 
P

Prince of Space

Banned
I don't find it creepy at all; it's just stupid-looking. I was mildly interested in this until I saw the trailer with the terrible-looking Hanks CG character. "Well...ya comin'?" Um, no thanks.
 
O

olimario

Banned
ohamsie said:
I wonder how many of you have even read the book.
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I think most children born after 83 have read the book.
THe movie is such a far cry from the wonderful book and would be much better with burton-esque visuals done the way The Nightmare Before Christmas was done.
 
I

IAmtheFMan

Member
ohamsie said:
I wonder how many of you have even read the book.
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I remember having it read to me in school as a kid; it's one of those books that works the best when you're a kid and your imagination is just running wild with this stuff being described.

This is the one where it ends with the kid
growing up and no longer being able to hear the bell right?

Yeah, that was kinda depressing. I wonder if the movie ends that way too.
 
J

Justin85

Member
I saw this film last week, and I will say with certain that it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. From lifeless animation, god-awful musical numbers, a lament of poor and/or Jewish children, to treating Santa as a Stalin-esque figure worshipped by asexual cult members, it's just all very horrible. So horrible in fact, that I'm kind of glad I experienced it (for free; if it was a regular screening, I would have been quite mad).
 
B

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
belgurdo said:
If this movie had "Pixar" in the credits, you'd be jizzing all over it. Instead it's "creepy" because it's not the same cartoonish looking bullshit that every company is pumping out right now
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this is retarded. if you can't tell the difference between this animation and pixar you need to have your eyes checked.

pixar has weight, texture, momentum, and fliudity to their animation. when in the incredibles trailer Bob slaps his hand on the desk it almost feels like an actor doing improvisation.

this is nowhere near that level of animation.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Eh...this movie looks like boring shit.

Seriously people, Ebert can be a goddamn stupid douchebag sometimes. Just read his Godfather Part II review.
 
3

3phemeral

Member
borghe said:
this is retarded. if you can't tell the difference between this animation and pixar you need to have your eyes checked.

pixar has weight, texture, momentum, and fliudity to their animation. when in the incredibles trailer Bob slaps his hand on the desk it almost feels like an actor doing improvisation.

this is nowhere near that level of animation.
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This is true. The Incredibles showed just how far Pixar is able to push the whole subtle human emotion qualities that make the characters so believable. The twitches in Mr. Incredible's face when he's at his desk, the expressions that the antagonist has when he's gestiuclating his monologues, the physics behind the movement of the characters is so spot on that you never once stop to think "man, that looks pretty unnatural".

The only thing bad I can say about this movie is that it felt a little on the long side, used a few cliches (kids response to surviving the car scene near the end), and the premise behind the action seuqencess during the final battle. Yet, the way the story is told and animated is pulled off so well that these issues become tertiary, plus -- by the time they really start to kick ass, you want them to.

Pixar is definitely my favorite american animation student at the moment and The Incredibles is second only to Monsters Ic. That movie had so much charm and heart that it's impossible not to like.
 
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