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 Robert
Zemeckis has been so successful as a writer, producer and director,
it’s easy to forget that he’s also one of the most technologically
innovative filmmakers in Hollywood history. Sure, he solidified
his commercial sensibilities with box office hits like 1984’s
“Romancing the Stone” and 1985’s “Back to the Future,” but he
practically changed the way movies were made with groundbreakers
like 1988’s live action-animation hybrid “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
and 1994’s CGI-blended Best Picture-winner, “Forrest Gump.”
Now Zemeckis climbs
aboard “The Polar Express” for his biggest challenge yet. In an
effort to duplicate the oil painted imagery of Chris Van Allsburg’s
lavishly illustrated children’s book, Zemeckis is gambling $170
million on an experimental filmmaking process that will have to
grease the rails all the way through the holiday season in order
for Warner Bros. to turn a profit. And it will have to do so right
in the middle of enormous family-friendly competition, as Disney/Pixar’s
highly anticipated “The Incredibles” opens 5 days earlier than
“The Polar Express,” and Paramount’s “The SpongeBob SquarePants
Movie” opens 9 days later.
With that much at
stake, I was really hoping my review would include something shamelessly
quotable like, “All aboard for an instant Christmas classic!”
Sadly, it doesn’t; for while “The Polar Express” is certainly
ambitious on a technological scale, it’s too dark and emotionally
detached to convey the warm and fuzzy spirit of a timeless holiday
fable. Despite Zemeckis’ best efforts to film a modern-day “Wizard
of Oz”-style epic, not even the presence of longtime collaborator
Tom Hanks (“Forrest Gump,” “Cast Away”) can keep “The Polar Express”
from derailing as an expensive disappointment.
When a young boy (Daryl
Sabara) is jolted awake on Christmas Eve by a massive steam train
that comes to a roaring stop right outside his front door, the
conductor (Tom Hanks) informs him that the train is en route to
the North Pole. The boy climbs aboard and meets several excited
kids (Nona Gaye, Eddie Deezen), but for some reason, he still
can’t bring himself to believe in the magic of Santa Clause. What
starts off as an extraordinary ride turns into a journey of self-discovery,
as the young boy learns that the wonder and excitement of Christmas
lies truly in the heart of those who never stop believing.
Where the process
of Performance Capture was used to create the character of Gollum
for all three “Lord of the Rings” movies, “The Polar Express”
has the distinction of being the first feature to be shot almost
entirely using the technique. Here’s how it works; the actors
wore special form-fitting bodysuits covered with special markers
so that all of their movements could be “captured.” These movements
were then fed into computers, which built all-new images on top
of (and around) the actors, giving the film a unique blend that
falls somewhere between live action and computer animation.
The problem is that
for all the detail that went into accurately depicting real human
beings, the characters look just as cold, dead-eyed and awkward
as they did in 2001’s computer-generated box office bomb “Final
Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Which begs the question, why go
through all that trouble when you can just use the real thing?
Whether or not it would have made the film more expensive is beside
the point. It’s one thing to focus on non-humans or humans with
highly exaggerated features (like Fox’s “Ice Age” or any of the
Disney/Pixar films), but “The Polar Express” proves that the technology
still has a long way to go before computer-generated people look
just as lively as their real-life counterparts.
Screenwriter William
Broyles, Jr. (“Apollo 13,” “Cast Away”) adds several new characters
and elements to Van Allsburg’s 29-page tale, but the results still
fall short of justifying the film’s 1-hour-and-40-minute running
time. A film like “Shrek” fared better at turning a short story
into a successful feature, but that was because the sharp, clever
screenplay transcended its source material in so many ways. Zemeckis
throws in a few bells and whistles in the form of some exciting
roller coaster rides and Alan Silvestri’s manipulative score,
but even they feel more like filler material to stretch out the
story.
Tom Hanks certainly
earns his stellar paycheck riding “The Polar Express.” Not only
is he one of the film’s executive producers, but also provides
motion capture for 5 roles (the young boy, the father, the hobo,
the conductor and Santa Clause) while voicing 4 of them (“Spy
Kids” star Daryl Sabara voices the young boy). It’s a project
that was obviously close to his and Zemeckis’ heart, but it’s
just too bad that the sentiment of the story got lost in the technology.
Hopefully, Zemeckis will fare better on his next big experiment,
and I’m sure he will. After all, we are talking about one of the
most successful filmmakers in Hollywood history.
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