“The Polar Express” is a perfect family friendly holiday classic. It is an animated movie that contains lots of character development, catchy songs, and intriguing visuals.
Overview
“The Polar Express” was released on November 10, 2004. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, who is also well known for the hit movies “Back to the Future”, “Forrest Gump”, and various others. The writers include Chris Van Allsburg, Robert Zemeckis, and William Broyles Jr. It is about an hour and forty minutes long. It won 3 Oscars along with other award nominations and wins.
There are some well known names involved in being the voices of these characters. Tom Hanks voices many important characters, such as Hero Boy, Father, Conductor, Hobo, Scrooge, and Santa Claus. Nona Gaye voices the Hero girl, Chris Coppola voices the Toothless Boy and Elf, Michael Jeter voices Smokey and Steamer, and so on. The budget for this movie was $150 million dollars.
Plot
On the night of Christmas Eve, a young boy starts to question whether Santa Claus is real or not. He struggles to fall asleep, but then hears the blaring sounds of a train right on his street. Then, he decided to hop on the train, after much convincing from the conductor, that was said to be heading toward the North Pole. After hopping on the train, he meets many new people and has to embark on various journeys. These journeys teach many valuable lessons and evoke the true spirit of Christmas in many different characters.
Where and who should watch
Hulu, Max, Prime Video, and Amazon all stream the “Polar Express” movie. Anyone can watch this movie, but middle school age and up seem to be the desired audience for this movie. This movie will entertain and intrigue older kids, but may scare younger children. Younger kids seem to find the visuals to be confusing and scary.
Theme
The themes of believing, helping others and staying true to yourself are all explored within “The Polar Express”. The Hero Boy learns to believe what he wants to, while also putting others before himself, and doing what he thinks is best.
Opinion
I personally think that this movie is very heartfelt. For me, it brings lots of nostalgia, since I would watch this movie around Christmastime every year when I was young. It is not emotional, but instead more hopeful. It kept me entertained and invested in the story. The music is very catchy and goes along well with the story, along with the interesting graphics and visuals.
Other Thoughts
People seem to have mixed opinions about “The Polar Express” movie. Brady Hammond From Colonia High School says that “From personal experience I think that “the Polar Express” has a great plot, and it maybe could become a remake in the future with animations. Also, my decision is that it’s not the best Christmas movie to watch if your a six-year-old trying to sit still because when I was younger it took too long to meet Santa, so I would fast forward to the good parts.”
Shane Litterer from Colonia High School believes that “It’s a holiday classic. Very Christmas feeling movie. I like train. Three simple sentences for a simple man and a simple movie.”
English teacher, Danielle Allen, has twin 4-year-old boys who are scared of the movie. “A lot of scenes are dark. The conductor taking the girl when her ticket goes missing scares my kids. And they, of course, question why children are on the roof of a moving train. Twice we have tried to watch it and they have covered their eyes or asked me to turn it off. Even the book is scary to them but not as much as the movie.”
