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The Polar Express is a 2004 computer-animated feature film based on the children’s book of the same title by Chris Van Allsburg.
Written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, the human characters in the film were “animated” using “live action” performance capture technique, with the exception of the waiters who dispense hot chocolate on the train, because their feats were impossible for real-life actors to achieve. Performance capture technology incorporates the movements of live actors into animated characters. It stars actor Tom Hanks in five distinct roles, including the role of Santa Claus. The film was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Shangri-La Entertainment, ImageMovers, Playtone and Golden Mean, for Warner Bros. The visual effects and performance capture was done at Sony Pictures Imageworks. The studio first released the $170 million film in both conventional and IMAX 3D theaters on Wednesday, November 10, 2004. It was the last film in which Michael Jeter made a contribution as he had died on March 30, 2003, and the film is dedicated to his memory.
Plot :
On Christmas Eve in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1941, a doubtful young boy named Steven (Daryl Sabara) is hoping for belief in the true spirit of Christmas. He suddenly hears some noise from downstairs and runs to investigate. Seeing a shadow of what appears to be Santa Claus, he soon discovers that it is his dad with his sister on his shoulders. He runs back to his room and looks through magazines and encyclopedias for confirmation of Santa Claus and the North Pole, but to no avail. Hearing his parents coming, he runs back to bed and pretends to be asleep while his parents whisper about how he had once stayed up late listening for Santa Claus. An hour and a half after they leave (five minutes to midnight), a magic train called The Polar Express pulls up in front of his house. He is invited aboard by the train’s mysterious conductor (Tom Hanks) to journey to the North Pole. Though he initially hesitates, he boards the train after it starts to move.
On the train,Steven encounters a group of other children who are on their way to see Santa Claus, including a young girl named Isabelle, a know-it-all named Lenny and a lonely little boy named Billy. The last is unable to board the departing train until Steven pulls the emergancy brake, incurring the ire of the Conducter, who is obsessed with getting to the Pole on time. Waiters with ridiculously acrobatic movements (perhaps disguised Elves??) serve hot chocolate. However while taking a cup to Billy, Isabelle forgets her ticket, causing Steven to hurry after her with it. Unfortunately the connector between the coaches is freak, disappearing when the Conductor is not present, and the wind blows the ticket out of Steven’s hand and is lost. But no ticket of the Express can be lost, and after a series of misadventures among wolves and eagles the ticket gets back in the door when the Conductor is shutting it. But he does not find it, causing him to take Isabelle with him on his rounds as she is now “unticketed”. Steven finds the ticket and hurries after them, losing them on the roof. There he encounters a mysterious hobo (Tom Hanks), who lives on the top of the train, a slang-slinging streetwise and almost sinister character, who mocks the popular version of Santa and grills Steven about his “persuasion” on the reality of Santa. He claims jokingly to be king of the Polar Express, “in fact, I am the king of the North Pole!”
Steven’s answers being unsatisfactory, the Hobo storms off, leaving Steven under the impression that he is dreaming. But the Hobo returns on skiis and takes him on, to get to the engine and follow Isabelle—a difficult task, as the train is climbing an 85 degree slope. They nearly fall off. As the train thunders down an equally steep descent the Hobo skiis down the train and throws Steven into the coalcar just before a demonic-faced low-roofed tunnel, and vanishes into snow-powder. There Steven finds Isabelle driving the engine while the engineer and fireman (Michael Jeter) are changing the light. The train goes northwards over mountains and seemingly endless cold snowbound boreal pine forest. They must all overcome a variety of obstacles; at one point, a herd of caribou block the tracks. Later, the cotter pin holding the throttle together breaks. The train, now out of control and with Steven , Isabelle (Nona Gaye), and the Conductor standing on the front, then reaches “Glacier Gulch,” an area with vertical downhill grades worse than a roller coaster. The three must hold on tightly as the train speeds through Glacier Gulch and onto a frozen lake. The train tracks are frozen under the ice, and as a result, the train shoots out onto the lake. Despite the ice only being a few inches thick the enchanted train doesn’t fall through. The ice, fractured by the fallen Cotter pin, begins to break up. The train proceeds to perform an impossible breakneck dash across breaking-up ice before reaching safety.
Steven is trying to stop the others from falling off the tilting deck when he is seized by the Hobo and pulled to safety, and this time witnesses the Hobo’s vanishing into snow-powder. Soon after that the forest stops and the line climbs mountains that scrape the moon and travels out onto a great bridge, while the Conductor tells the children of a time when some unseen thing pulled him to safety. Isabelle cries “An angel!” to which the Conductor says dubiously, “Maybe.”
As the train travels across the frozen Arctic Ocean, they cross the Arctic Circle and come to the magnetic North Pole, just north of the Arctic Circle. The lonely boy, Billy (Jimmy Bennett), riding alone in the observation car does not want to see Santa (Tom Hanks) because he has come from a broken home on the bad side of his hometown; he says that Christmas does not work out for him. Steven and Isabelle run back to try to get him to come along with them, but Steven steps on the uncoupling lever and the car speeds back to the Roundhouse. The three of them travel from section to section of the North Pole’s industrial area, first visiting the Control Center, then the Wrapping Hall, and finally a warehouse before they are airlifted back to the center of the city via air ship. While that, Steven and Isabelle befriend Billy and he is now happy about Christmas. As they watch the final preparations, one bell falls off Santa’s sleigh. Steven picks it up and shakes it, remembering that Isabelle could hear a bell earlier when he could not. As before, he can not hear it. Steven then says he believes in Santa and the spirit of Christmas. He then sees Santa’s reflection on the bell; he shakes the bell again and hears it at last. He gives the bell back to Santa.
Steven is handpicked by Santa Claus to receive “The First Gift Of Christmas.” Realizing that he could choose anything in the world, the boy asks for the beautiful-sounding silver bell (that only believers can hear) which fell from Santa’s sleigh. Steven places the bell in the pocket of his robe and all the children watch as Santa takes off for his yearly delivery.
The children return to the train, and the conductor punches letters into each ticket. These letters spell some form of advice (such as “Learn,” “Lead,” or “Believe” for Lenny and Isabelle and Steven respectively) the special one was Billy’s which changes as he flips it (to Rely On, Depend On, Count on). As the train leaves, Steven discovers that the pocket of his robe is torn and the bell is missing. He returns home, saddened by the loss of the bell, and he sadly waves goodbye to his friends, but is cheered up when he sees that Santa had already arrived at Billy’s house. On Christmas morning, his sister Sarah finds a small present hidden behind the tree after all the others have been unwrapped. Steven opens the present and discovers that it is the bell, which Santa had found on the seat of his sleigh. When the boy rings the bell, both he and his sister, Sarah, marvel at the beautiful sound; but because their parents no longer believe in Santa Claus or the true magic of Christmas, they do not hear it. The last line in the movie repeats the same last line from the book: “At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.”
Cast :
Daryl Sabara as Hero Boy (Steven)
Tom Hanks as the Conductor
Tom Hanks as the Hobo
Tom Hanks as the Scrooge Puppet
Tom Hanks as Santa Claus
Tom Hanks as Hero Boy’s father
Tom Hanks as Hero Boy (narration)
Nona Gaye as Hero Girl (Isabelle)
Jimmy Bennett as Billy
Eddie Deezen as Lenny (the voice resembles that of Mandark from Dexter’s Laboratory)
Joe Pesci as the Head Elf (uncredited)
Steven Tyler as the Singing Elf
Michael Jeter as Smokey
Michael Jeter as Steamer
Leslie Zemeckis as Hero Boy’s mother
Isabella Peregrin as Sarah, Hero Boy’s sister
Matthew Hall as Billy (singing voice)
Meagan Moore as Hero Girl (singing voice)
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