The Polar Express

Chris Van Allsburg’s magical tale of the Christmas Eve re-education of a Santa-doubting adolescent teetering on the brink of disbelief gets a multimillion-dollar makeover via CGI and a revolutionary new filming process that allows Hanks to "act" five different roles. There’s Christmas magic in Zemeckis’ film, but there’s also a bizarre, palpable sense of unease lurking just below the surface. Nearly all of that is due to the animation style, which faithfully replicates Van Allsburg’s painterly compositions, but doesn’t translate all that successfully to the screen. If the human characters give you the willies, they’re nothing compared to Santa’s elfin minions (believe me, the word fits), who, with their big ears and pug faces, look like micronaut Bowery Boys on a snowblowing bender. William Broyles’ script is faithful to the spirit of the original 30-page text while adding various hair-raising events at every turn, but Zemeckis and DreamWorks’ legions of animators have sorely goofed with this new animation style.