The Polar Express

Unfortunately, because of the ongoing American War on Christmas, popularized in print and television by several noted Fox News assholes, the animated film Polar Express has been banned from any public screenings. This is sad because...

Wait, what? Polar Express is readily available on DVD, and will be returning to theaters this Christmas Season for a theatrical run in IMAX 3-D? But, if that were the case, it would indicate that...there isn't really a War on Christmas at all! In fact, it would indicate the exact opposite, that Christmas is openly being celebrated this year just like any other! Well, I'll never trust Fox News again!

Anyway, rather than returning The Polar Express to movie theaters where there's a chance some poor unsuspecting fool will accidentally watch it, Warner Brothers really ought to do the fair, public-minded thing and destroy the original negative and any other survivng prints. Because this isn't just an unpleasant, shrill, mindless distraction for young children. This is some sort of bizarre, unholy abomination. I know the film says it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, but just think about this...If Satan had actually directed a film, do you think he'd indicate this on the packaging? "Directed by Satan, Lord of the Underworld." Of course not. He's the goddamn King of Lies! He'd put a beloved, respected name on there, a name that was sure to secure some viewers for his mad carnival of horrors.

A name like...80's phenom Robert Zemeckis, director of beloved American classics like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Curse your bottomless ingenuity, Lucifer!



Polar Express was created via a process called Motion Capture. This was the same technique used to animate Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films. The difference is, of course, that Gollum was just one character within a live-action film, whereas Polar Express is an animated film. So, the backgrounds are computer-generated, and live actors actually gave performances, which were then inserted into a computer and animated digitally.

The resulting effect is strange. It's clearly "not ready from prime time," in that it looks oddly artificial. The word "uncanny" gets misused all the time, so I'm loathe to ever include it in a post, but Polar Express is "uncanny" in the proper sense. The movements of the characters, in particular, are more life-like than in, say, a PIXAR film, in which the characters have the exaggerated movements of a cartoon. But the eyes...the faces...these characters, quite simply, have no souls.

Even a film like Shrek, which isn't cutting edge in 2005, manages to give its animated characters a semblance of a life, and to give their face personality. Everyone in Polar Express looks like a robot. It's fucking freaky. They have these faraway, dead eyes. Like The Night of the Living Dead Before Christmas.

So the whole film has this cold, distant tone to it. You never for a minute give yourself over to the story, or get sucked in by any sort of drama, because you can't stop looking at these eerie zombies on screen. Oh, and also because there is no drama to get sucked into. Polar Express is based on a 10 page children's book, and the book still has more depth.

Here's the story. A young boy (referred to in the credits as Hero Boy, which sounds like a good name for the First Retarded Superhero, which is easily a better idea for a movie) doesn't believe in Santa. He then gets invited on to a weird train to the North Pole, where he meets Santa. So he now believes in him. Then he takes the train home.

Oh, and they serve hot chocolate along the way. And there's a creepy bum. And everyone (everyone!) sounds like Tom Hanks.

In addition to playing The Conductor, the old guy who invites the boy on the train in the first place, Hanks plays Santa, the bum and the narrator. And considering that the narrator is telling the story of what happened to himself as a little boy, that means it's a story about a guy who invites himself on a train to the North Pole, so he can see a grim vision of himself as a bum and then meet a vision of himself dressed as Santa Claus. Christmas was never so creepy or Freudian.

I haven't even mentioned any of the worst shit about Polar Express. Here are some of the film's weakest spots, in convenient bullet form:

• Ghastly songs, many of which repeat the same few phrases over and over and over again. The first big number, called "Hot Chocolate," contains exactly one phrase - "hot chocolate" - and filled me with the urge to repeatedly give Tom Hanks second-degree burns by breaking a vat of boiling cocoa over his head. Did I mention that the film's closing-credit song is called "Believe" and is sung by Josh Groban? This is music to slit your wrists on Christmas Eve to.
• Animated Tom Hanks, dressed as a train conductor, doing a Bob Fosse dance atop a caterer's cart.
• The weird "romance" scene between the two children on the train. Bobby Z...inappropriate.
• The fetishized "elf dance" that precedes Santa's appearance. Are these elves or fucking fascists? What is Robert Zemeckis trying to say by showing these slavishly worshipful elves groveling at the feet of Tom Hanks dressed as Santa Claus? Is Santa some sort of cult leader? Does he demand this kind of supplication from his underlings? What are the penalties if an elf chooses not to participate? And finally, what's the purpose of hiring a Conductor to ship children to the North Pole in order to watch the glorification of Santa in some sort of strange photo-op? Indoctrination? Fear-mongering? Or just propaganda?
• Why are there only American children on the train? Does Santa secretly hate foreigners?
• The film's horrible, horrible message. Like many Christmas films, the movie's theme boils down to "you have to have faith in order to find the Christmas Spirit." Okay, fine, whatever...It's all puppy dogs and ice cream this time of the year, I can accept that. But unlike most Christmas films, Polar Express actively opposes curiosity and reasoning. It's the most ignorant children's movie that I have seen in a long time. In the opening scene, Hero Boy looks up "The North Pole" in the encyclopedia and discovers that the definition - a harsh, cold, desolate environment - conflicts with the mythology of Santa Claus. He reasons, then, that Santa Claus must not be real, and goes on a journey of discovery to find that Santa is real after all. Why go to such pains to discourage kids from reading and looking up information? Can't you lie to kids about Santa without slandering encyclopedias? Does it really have to be this choice between rational thought and getting presents? Really? Is that responsible, Robert Zemeckis? "It's good to be smart, but don't be too smart, or you won't get what you want for Christmas! Santa demands not just your devotion, but your blind, slack, mindless devotion, you little fucking bastard!"

Okay, so I added that last part, but still...I hate kid's movies that go out of their way to poison kids against rationality and intellectual honesty. Faith, imagination, those are important things, for sure. I'm not saying kids movies should be like "The Fountainhead" or anything, preparing them for the grim realities of life. That's what grown-up movies are for. But I do think that the message of a movie should try to avoid "hey kids, don't read books, you won't learn nothing." We've got enough ignorant assholes around here as it is, without creating another generation of them.

Just look at that...thing. The effect is not exactly what you'd call warm and inviting. Max Headroom had more human features. In fact, it looks kind of like Max Headroom, if you put a conductor's hat on him and gave him a cop moustache. Why the hell you'd do that, I don't know. But I also don't know why the hell Robert Zemeckis wants to muck about with this imperfect, half-developed animation process when all his best movies were made with regular old outdated celluloid film. So what the hell do I know?