I read a review of The Polar Express comparing the look of the film to illustrations in old children’s books, the ones that, for certain generations, bring back warm and much-cherished memories, and while the movie didn’t exactly knock my socks off like I expected it would, this is exactly what it looks like, and that kind of aesthetic appeal can go a long way. It is famously the first film using the innovative new motion capture photography technique, where real actors are filmed wearing little sensors on their face and body, so that their actual visages can be animated right into the movie for a level of computer animated realism like nothing we’ve seen before. And it works.

The story involves an urgent Christmas-time emergency. A young boy lies quietly in his bed on Christmas Eve, as the story begins, and pores over doubts in his mind about the existence of Santa Claus. Enter The Polar Express, a magical train designed for just such an emergency. The conductor (one of I think five separate roles played by Tom Hanks), in one of the film’s finest moments, calmly urges the astonished boy, “I think you should get on the train.”

There are definite roller coaster moments which, for all of the movie’s thematic cleverness, remind us periodically that this is meant to be a good ride, thrilling us with the stomach-turning train travel as much as with the brilliant animation and entirely new form of acting. What I love about the movie is that it doesn’t give us a sugary confection when we get to the North Pole. Santa is not jolly old St. Nick here, he’s a businessman with a lot of employees. Tiny employees, but also not cute little elves either. Even the reindeer look like real animals, that grunt and snort and, gasp, may even have bodily functions! This is a Christmas movie that is not only more technologically advanced, but more mature.

There were a few points in the movie where I felt that the Conductor was a little on the abrasive side, sometimes even a little mean. I appreciate that the movie doesn’t shoot for your traditional Christmas movie, opting instead to add some excitement and even be a little scary, but at some times the effort to do this became a little transparent and we get something where the conductor just comes off as a jerk. Nevertheless, he has an excellent character arc, especially when you realize at the end what he has accomplished with that harsh behavior. Besides, I should also mention that the most persistently unrealistic aspect of the movie was the fact that our hero, a young boy, spends the vast majority of the movie running around in his pajamas on the outside of the train as it sped through the snowy landscape. Even I felt cold.

But I should mention that it is ironically because of things like the Conductor’s attitude that the movie is so watchable, and re-watchable. I’ve heard some people worry about what this new method of capturing performances will mean in the future (I know that some people are, for some reason, worried that actors will some day literally be able to “phone-in” their performances), although that doesn’t exactly strike me as a valid concern. It seems like an addition to the art, rather than a corruption. Either way, it’s a great holiday movie and a pretty exciting ride!

The Bean Meter

Neither Ron Howard nor Dan Brown nor probably anyone involved with The Da Vinci Code really made many friends with the authorities of the Catholic Church with that movie, so it comes as some surprise to me that Howard would have been offended, even if just a little bit, when he was denied access to the Vatican for filming the sequel, which was published before The Da Vinci Code but takes place after. It does seem, however, that they are being a little more careful this time, or at least more respectful. The Catholic Church has denied all “real-life” (or whatever you want to call the reality of organized religion) relevance of the movie, passing it off as a “harmless entertainment” that really poses no threat to the Church.

So that’s nice, right? I’m glad to see Hollywood and religion in general not at each other’s throats, you know? It’s a little refreshing, and it makes this movie even more interesting because it’s all about the ancient war between science and religion in the first place and the Church’s epic, historical cover-up(s) of the truth. Of course, the truth a pretty elastic term when it comes to religion (which this movie mentions is not God but what man says about God), and I’m glad to see that the new movie, Angels & Demons, seems more interested in entertainment, as it should be, than in making any earth-shattering revelations about the meaning of life.

There is an interesting and tense scene in the first act of the movie where Robert Langdon, who we met in The Da Vinci Code, is asked whether or not he believes in God. “I don’t think my mind can grasp the reality of the existence of God,” he says. “What about your heart?” he is asked. “My heart is not worthy.” These are very carefully guarded questions, the kind of thing that a non-believer would say to someone that he doesn’t want to offend, but he shows genuine respect when asked about his faith. “Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive.”

The movie starts out, believe it or not, exactly the same way as Innerspace. Remember that movie? Classic! After a sequence describing the recent death of a progressive and well-like Pope, we are taken to a “Large Hadron Collider” (by the way, I just typed “Hadron” but accidentally reversed the ‘d’ and the ‘r.’ Oops!) which collides some, ah, hadrons, I suppose, and creates and captures some “anti-matter,” which is capable of causing devastating explosions. This becomes important later. The bad guys rush in, steal a vial of anti-matter, and threaten to rain biblical, as it were, destruction on all of Rome, vaporizing the Vatican if it’s demands are not met.

Who are these people? The Illuminati, another ancient mythical cult like Opus Dei from the first film. What are their demands? I’m not sure, the movie doesn’t take much time to go into such things before the desperate race against the time bomb to Armageddon starts ticking. But we do learn that historically the Illuminati have always been composed of doctors and philosophers and scientists and so have always been dedicated to scientific truth, and since the Church wasn’t so into that idea they became enemies pretty early on. Langdon and his side-kick, this time a Vittoria Vetra, one of the scientists from the Hadron Collider, are now faced with the task of deciphering ancient clues to find the location where those Illuminati thugs have hidden the ticking vial of anti-matter.

Essetially the movie is a desperately paced race for them to unlock the secrets of a long and ancient trail of clues within the Vatican in order to reach the bomb before it explodes and vaporizes a large chunk of Rome. I’m not sure why the Illuminati would take the time to place it carefully at the end of this trail of clues, but it provides for a great excuse for a breathless chase that takes up most of the second half of the movie, and I would certainly by lying if I said it wasn’t entertaining and exciting.

I think the problem with both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons is that they both deal with subject matter that is so massive in the modern global society that there is no possible way that any movie could really fulfill the expectations of the audience, particularly the audience that knows something about the real history of it all. Yeah, you can pick these things apart into little pieces if your really want to, but as good popcorn entertainment I think they are both great movies, if a little on the long side. Neither of them are spoken from the throne of God himself, but if you want to go to a movie and have a good time, you could certainly do a lot worse than both of them. And especially at a time when we have sad messes like Next Day Air and Obsessed dominating movie theaters across the country, this one comes highly recommended. If you’ve seen Star Trek and X4, of course…

4 Beans out of 5.