The Polar Express

Speeding down the tracks perilously close behind last week's The Incredibles, Warner Bros.' Polar Express is opening today (Wednesday) in advance of the Veterans Day weekend. As with The Incredibles, much of the critical attention focuses on the film's animation process -- in this one, it's called performance capture. Many critics are unimpressed, among them Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, who suggests that the film, about the power of the imagination, displays little of it. She calls the film a grave and disappointing failure, as much of imagination as of technology and writes that the motion-capture technology used to create the human figures has resulted in a film filled with creepily unlifelike beings. Steve Murray in the Atlanta Journal says that the entire film feels prefab, adding, Even if it's wrapped in $165 million worth of tinsel (the movie's reported budget), a lump of coal is still a lump of coal. On the other hand, Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News describes the movie as a sensation -- both a milestone in computer-animation and a likely Christmas classic. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times calls the look of the film extraordinary, and remarks: The characters in The Polar Express don't look real, but they don't look unreal, either; they have a kind of simplified and underlined reality that makes them visually magnetic. Comments Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail: A classic story has brushed up against a new technology and, for once, both are the better for it. The result is cinematic kismet. And Philip Wuntch in the Dallas Morning News praises the film as a stunning technological achievement and, for the most part, a stirring emotional one. The groundbreaking animation is wondrous in detail and imagination. Several critics give the animation technology mixed reviews. Meghan Lehmann in the New York Post observes: There's something creepy about the humans' faces, particularly the hollow eyes. But the digital animation allows the creation of beautiful vistas and outstanding sequences that could never be achieved with live action. Likewise, Ty Burr in the Boston Globe calls the movie a holiday oddity of the first rank: a breathtaking visual feast peopled by dead-eyed mannequins.