The Polar Express Review

        Finally, I will get off my butt and talk about a holiday movie. This one is interesting in terms of its age. I’m starting to see that its reaching that apex of becoming a holiday classic and also having its critics. Don’t worry I’ll go easy on it. Any time I go to either Target or Wal-Mart, I see the DVDs on sale alongside the older holiday movies. And of course, I’ll talk about its divisive computer animation. 

1. The Children’s Book Adaptation Dilemma

        Something I’ve noticed whenever a short children’s story is adapted to film, is that the source material is usually short. So, the problem is how do you stretch out a story that’s approximately 30 pages long to a feature length movie? Simple, expand on the elements of the characters so that it at least follows the essence of the book. 

        Well, that’s the not the case for this movie. This is the first instance with any movie that I saw at a young age where the main characters don’t have an actual name. While it’s not a detriment in of itself, I think it’s one of the flaws for the movie. And to the book’s credit, the character’s didn’t have any names as well, so there’s that. In terms of story, a young boy is invited to board The Polar Express to see Santa Claus in the North Pole. 

        There’s some level of depth for the boy. It’s explained visually that he doesn’t believe in Santa. He has in his collection articles and magazines of mall Santas being exposed as fakes. So, he joins to see if St. Nick is indeed real. What’s interesting is that the boy is that two actors portrayed the kid. Josh Hutcherson, you might know him from The Hunger Games trilogy, did the motion capture. And Daryl Sabara, who was in Spy Kids, voiced the kid. 

        One thing I want to mention is that Hutcherson was in another movie that was adapted from the author’s work. He’s in the movie Zathura, a severely underrated movie and I personally think is better than Jumanji. The latter whose author also worked on this movie’s source material. 

        Anyways, since the whole story is about as simple as you can get. There are moments where there’s tension. Such as the train speeding too fast and one of the characters forgetting her ticket. During these moments, it feels like something that is attempting to show off the animation. While appreciative and to me just interesting with how many hours it must’ve been working on it. I feel that it gives a movie too much padding and tension.

        Like duh, the moments feel like a theme park. With the camera zooming by and seeing the level of attention in the animated details. It didn’t bother me when I was younger when I found it engaging. Nowadays, I kind of just wanted to be like get to the point. At the same time, it gives the movie more since the kids can be bland.

2. The Uncanny Valley

        Aside from Tom Hanks stealing the show by portraying three characters in the whole movie, the main point of contention of the movie is just the animation. To put it into context, this is Robert Zemeckis’ second film dealing with animation. His first Who Framed Roger Rabbit changed animation and special effects. This one is no exception, but the way it went about it is off putting. 

        This style of computer animation is called motion capture. How they do it is that the actors wear a suit that has sensors that a computer detects. They then act and their entire movement is recorded to be animated. Back then, the closest equivalent is a style called rotoscoping. Which is a film or a piece of film that is drawn to have a distinct style. 

        With that, the animation can be beautiful at times. Especially the shot of the train stopping in front of the boy’s house. The kids and pretty much anything looking human just looks odd. It’s what’s dubbed the uncanny valley. Anything that looks life-like but the dead giveaway is the eyes. The kids have it worse. There’s a moment where the girl is scooting closer to the boy, but the way she looks appears older than what they’re going for. Don’t even get me started on the elves.

        This is the first film where Zemeckis started his short-lived animation studio Image Movers. He dabbled some more with this style of animation with his adaptations of Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. Progressively they got better, but the baggage of motion capture also followed. It would be years later when the Nickelodeon film Rango, with its motion capture but having animal characters winning the Academy Award for best animated feature. 

3. Legacy

        As I mentioned earlier, this film is starting to begin its classics phase whenever the holidays roll around and the numerous copies appear on the shelves. Surprisingly, there’s been moments with Amtrak and other countries equivalents where they had trips centered around the whole story. The U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom’s train stations all had at one-point trips that commemorated the story. As of now, I don’t believe that they do it anymore but I could be wrong. 

4. Overall

        This film’s enjoyable and for a while the animation didn’t creep me out. Though it lacks any sort of character depth, or just caring in the grand scheme, it’s fun for just this holiday season. 

 

Uncle Buck Review

        This is probably the hardest month I have to do now. In case you haven’t seen any of my reviews from the past, I’ve practically covered some of the best holiday movies. And that’s gotten me thinking, what now? Well, it took awhile of twiddling my thumbs and I’ve decided to look at an underappreciated John Hughes film Uncle Buck. It’s not Christmas, but it’s in the winter. So close enough. 

1. Buck

        After the success of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, it only made sense for John Hughes to bring back John Candy in another film. Well, it wasn’t the first time where the John’s had collaborated again. The first instance was in National Lampoon’s Vacation, albeit Hughes was the screenwriter and John Candy appeared near the end of the film. 

        With that, the film is mostly straightforward and including the many hallmarks of the typical John Hughes movie. You can call them motifs, but it’s simple to spot. The film takes place of all places Chicago, in a somewhat fancy neighborhood, and the non-diegetic music sounding like Vangelis. Hell, the various sports teams have to show up.

        Anyways, we see Buck being called in by his brother. There’s a family emergency and Buck is tasked with house sitting and taking care of his nieces and nephew. From there, we get to see him slowly changing himself from a slob to a responsible person. Candy does a good job for portraying the uncle. I think what sells him is that he has that awe-shucks persona, with a no-no sense feel.

        The scenes with him and the kids is heartwarming. I think the best moments is when he goes head-to-head with his older niece Tia. From the start, we see her being upset about living in Chicago instead of Indianapolis. She’s the rebellious one and the one that only John Hughes could write and direct. We see that Uncle Buck manages to hold his own when he gets in Tia’s skin. 

        More importantly, his whole character arc or when we see him from the start to the end is kind of interesting. The thing going against him is that people have a notion about him being a slob and a gambling man. Especially, since he has a woman in his life that doesn’t trust him to be committed to a relationship. Which prompts him to act like a dad to his younger niece and nephew. 

        The one problem that I have with the film is that I think the film would’ve been interesting if it explored more on his background. There’s one scene where he sorts through his brother’s marriage album. Buck sees a picture where his profile is folded to fit into the page. I think it shows just the level of uneasy that he had with his family. To me, I think it would’ve been explored more but the film would’ve gone longer. Personally, that scene showed just how much Buck had to do to change his image. 

2. John Hughes’ Waning Quality

        Another thing about watching John Hughes’ films is that you start to notice that the level of quality started to slowly go towards mediocrity. He certainly hit his apex with hits like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to name a few in the 80s. From the late 80s to the 90s is when you start to see the shift. It’s mostly attributed to him going back to his screenwriter position. While he did write Home Alone, I consider that one to be his last great project. That point forward you had loads of bad movies where it seemed like the level of quality was just appalling.

        So, what does Uncle Buck have anything to do with that? Well, I can certainly see it as a film where it’s the beginning of the drop in quality. For one thing, there are moments where it feels cartoony sometimes. Like that one scene with Buck and the clown acting like a drunk. The whole thing could’ve ended with just one punch. Having the character shake his head like a toon just feels off. 

3. Overall

        Uncle Buck is an underrated film that is sandwiched between John Hughes’ great films. It’s a good watch for seeing the late comedian being a great Uncle.