JOURNEY BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION.

Late on Christmas Eve, a boy who doesn’t believe in Santa anymore wakes up to see the Polar Express just outside his house; it’s headed for Santa’s home.

The first film to be made entirely with performance capture animation has lively and thrilling action sequences and the technology looks promising, but in spite of Tom Hanks’s hard work in several roles there is no escaping how strange the characters look at times. That hasn’t exactly improved with time.

A sweet story, but with a few spoonfuls of sugar too many.

2004-U.S. Animated. 100 min. Widescreen. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Screenplay: Robert Zemeckis, William Broyles, Jr. Book: Chris Van Allsburg. Music: Alan Silvestri. Song: “Believe” (Glen Ballard, Alan Silvestri). Cast: Tom Hanks (Hero Boy/Father/Conductor/Hobo/Scrooge/Santa Claus), Michael Jeter (Smokey/Steamer), Peter Scolari (Lonely Boy), Nona Gaye, Eddie Deezen, Leslie Zemeckis… Charles Fleischer, Steven Tyler. 

Trivia: Co-produced by Zemeckis; co-executive produced by Hanks. The latter plays Hero Boy, but the voice of that character belongs to Daryl Sabara; Josh Hutcherson also did additional mo-cap acting for Hero Boy. Rob Reiner was first hired as director. Jeter’s last film.