THE POLAR EXPRESS: There’s No Greater Gift than Friendship

The Polar Express (2004) – Directed by Robert Zemeckis – Starring Tom Hanks, Josh Hutcherson, Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Peter Scolari, Eddie Deezen, Charles Fleischer, Steven Tyler, and Michael Jeter.

If I had kids, THE POLAR EXPRESS would be a part of our yearly Christmas movie marathon.

I just dig everything about the film: the characters, the story, the colors, the message, the motion captur-

Well, okay, the motion-capture animation still looks kinda freaky, and points out one of the flaws with using this technology – it only looks worse as the years go on. You can pop Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into your Blu-ray, DVD, or VCR and even though it’s now 75 years old, it still looks completely gorgeous. Quality hand-drawn animation from the distant past doesn’t suffer much in comparison to modern hand-drawn animation. There’s a difference, to be sure, but that largely comes from the other techniques used in making a movie and not from the animation itself.

Motion capture is so dependent on technology, though, that aspects like the rendering of hair and faces have become much improved since 2004, giving earlier films that employ this technology a bit of a choppy look.

That’s not to say that motion capture is bad tech or that POLAR EXPRESS is only worth watching if you can get past all of the human’s melted faces. On the whole, the movie still looks really good, but the humans are the worst looking parts of what’s otherwise a gorgeous film. The train, the wilderness, the North Pole … all of them are beautifully rendered. The movement of the humans and elves, too, is pretty good, but those weird faces creep me out a bit. The result is that it’s hard for me to buy into POLAR EXPRESS as something real. Even the opening voice over narration from our protagonist as an adult (Tom Hanks) gives EXPRESS the feeling of a story within a story; that is, what we’re seeing is less the actual event than the representation of an event based on memory.

There’s nothing overly complex about the film’s narrative. A young boy (Tom Hanks/Josh Hutcherson/Daryl Sabara) who’s starting to doubt in Christmas gets to take a ride on a magical train to the North Pole, where he meets Santa and has his belief in Christmas eternally affirmed. What makes the film work, however, is how likable our main character is and how earnestly he views his actions throughout the movie. He does some less-than-perfect things, but he always admits his mistakes, even in the face of a very angry Conductor. I like this kid. He’s struggling with the idea of having to grow up, of having to accept that the world is a different place than he previously understood it to be. Losing faith in Santa isn’t just about Santa to our unnamed protagonist – it’s about all of adolescence.

The lesson he learns in EXPRESS isn’t so much that Santa Claus (also Tom Hanks) is real as that you don’t have to let go of your belief in childlike things as you age. EXPRESS doesn’t suggest that you can Peter Pan your way through life, but rather that simple ideas and concepts are worthy of being taken into adulthood. When our protagonist and the female protagonist (Nona Gaye/Tinashe/Meagan Moore) help Billy (Peter Scolari/Jimmy Bennet/Matthew Hall) come out of his shell, it speaks to how powerful friendship and goodwill can be to a person who has experienced little of either. It’s a simple idea but it’s also a good one, and a Christmas movie is a fine time to make that point.

There’s a story here about the train ride and the experience in the North Pole, but the plot points are less important than seeing good kids do good things and be rewarded for it. THE POLAR EXPRESS never quite ascends to the level of a classic, but I’m always pleasantly reminded about how much I like the film when I watch it. The movie’s motion capture will remain eternally creepy but the story remains eternally heartwarming.

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My latest book, STUFFED ANIMALS FOR HIRE: THE CHRISTMAS OPERATION is now available for purchase in PAPERBACK and KINDLE formats.

SAFH is a kid’s espionage novella, but it’s also a tribute to the television shows I watched as a kid: The A-Team, Magnum PI, Knight Rider, Hardcastle and McCormack, Riptide, Dukes of Hazzard and generally any show where Post and Carpenter did the music. Recommended age? If you let your kid watch superhero cartoons or Knight Rider reruns, SAFH should be age appropriate.

Here’s the back cover description:

Jurgen the Gorilla. Throne the Lion. Bronze the Golden Eagle. Ray the Brown Bear. Bottle the Dolphin. Dev the Lynxwoman. 3 the Triceratops. Ptera the Pterodactyl. These eight stuffed animals make up the Return Squadron. For seven months they have worked together to return disconnected stuffed animals home. But now … on their final mission, the Return Squadron seek to steal the legendary Map of Everything. Before Christmas morning arrives, three of the Squadron will turn traitor, four will be stranded, and one will never see another Christmas.

JURASSIC PARK III: This is How You Play God

Jurassic Park III (2001) – Directed by Joe Johnston – Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, Taylor Nichols, Mark Harelik, and Laura Dern.

JURASSIC PARK III doesn’t pretend it’s anything more than it is – a quick rescue-and-escape romp through Dinosaur Island – and that clarity provides a streamlined and satisfying experience.

I saw JP3 in the theaters back in the day and as I exited the screening I remember thinking that they were gonna make a whole slew of JURASSIC movies because the production technology had clearly been perfected, and as long as kids loved dinosaurs, there was no reason to think a new dino movie every few years couldn’t rake in the money.

Idiot.

They’ve yet to make another JURASSIC movie, though it’s never been totally out of everyone’s mind. As early as 2002, Steven Spielberg was publicly talking about making JP4. Initially it was due to be released in 2005 with Joe Johnston returning to direct. Then it was a 2008 release without Johnston. A year later, Johnston was back in and talking about how JP4 would launch a new trilogy. A year after that, Johnston said he wanted to do JP4 after he finished Captain America. The following year, 2011, had both Johnston and Spielberg talking up the film, with Spielberg going so far as to tell a San Diego Comic Con audience that JP4 was being prepped, and later Universal announced they wanted it ready for 2013. By October, dino technical adviser (and inspiration for Alan Grant) Jack Horner said the script had been written, but by the end of the month Spielberg was saying that it was currently being written. In January of 2012, Spielberg said he would produce instead of direct.

Ah, Hollywood.

Coming up with a script for JURASSIC PARK 4 shouldn’t be that hard; if anything, Spielberg should take a cue from the Indiana Jones franchise, where it took them countless years to settle on a script that couldn’t have been radically different or better than the other options that had come up during the intervening years between Last Crusade and Crystal Skull.

The plot to JURASSIC PARK 3 is as simple as simple gets: Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) trick Alan Grant (Sam Neill) into helping them rescue their son Eric (Trevor Morgan) from Isla Sorna (Site B – that is, the setting of LOST WORLD and not JURASSIC PARK). Grant and his research assistant Billy (Alessandro Nivola) think they’re going to serve as a tour guide for the Kirbys, but when they get there they find themselves in the midst of the some mercenaries. The Kirbys aren’t rich and they’re no longer married; their son was lost while parasailing with Amanda’s rich new boyfriend Ben (Mark Harelik) and neither the Costa Rican or United States governments will help them look for their kid.

The reunification of the family unit serves as the emotional arc of the film, and it’s solid enough. Johnston doesn’t push too hard on this angle, knowing that people are here to see the dinosaurs and all you need from the plot is something serviceable. Would it be nice if there was more going on? Probably, but JP3 (and I mean this in a nice way) isn’t trying to be anything more than a decent popcorn flick. Or, to borrow a phrase that pal Derrick Ferguson used to describe The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, it’s “a B-movie with an A-budget.” (I love that phrase.)

The plane puts down on Isla Sorna and before the mercs can even set up a perimeter, they’ve been attacked by a Spinosaurus (which is totally a real dinosaur, despite the Hasbro-ish name). They climb back in the plane, which ends up clipping the Spinosaurus and crashing. Before they’ve been on Isla Sorna for ten cinematic minutes, then, two of the mercs have been killed, leaving only Udesky (Michael Jeter) with the principles, and Udesky is more office nerd than skilled mercenary.

There’s three basic dinosaur confrontations in JP3: with the Spinosaurus, with some revamped Raptors, and with some Pteranodons.

The Spinosaurus is the main threat, even replacing the T-Rex on the film’s poster. There’s a pretty great showdown between the T-Rex and the Spinosaurus shortly after the plane crash that has the Spino breaking the T-Rex’s neck. What’s nice about the sequence is that Jack Horner has theorized that the T-Rex is actually a scavenger and not the menacing hunter of legend, and the group comes upon the T-Rex by accident, as it’s feasting on another dinosaur’s kill. Seeing them sends the T-Rex after them, however, which leads to the quick battle against the Spinosaurus, which results in the Spino being definitively cast as the new Big Bad on the island when it takes the T-Rex out.

It’s a great sequence, and one I appreciate even more after watching the bonus features where it’s explained that the battle is unique in that the Spino is totally a Stan Winston Studio puppet while the Spino is totally an ILM creation.

The Spinosaurus is a pretty darn cool looking dino, and it helps that it looks like something out of a pulp story with its alligator face, a huge, arced neural spine, and massive tail, because JP3 is so action-oriented. The Spino comes back over and over during the film, on both land and in the water, and it’s a nice way for the storytellers to make a real character out of the animal.

The Raptors are back again and they’ve undergone a visual revamp with the addition of a small band of thin feathers on the crown of their heads. The Raptors are also given loads of character development. Grant has expanded his theory about their intelligence and their vocal capabilities, and the film puts these new vocal qualities on display. Where the JURASSIC PARK Raptors were scary because they were vicious enough to rip you to shreds, and showed their intelligence because they hunted in packs and could open doors, the Raptors in JP3 are scary because of their intelligence and communication skills. They injure Udesky and place him out in the open, proving that they know how to set traps. Billy’s statement that, “they actually laid a trap” comes off as the dark side of Grant’s pronouncment in JURASSIC PARK that some of the herbivores “do move in packs.”

There’s a subplot involving Billy stealing a few Raptor eggs, causing the Raptors to follow them around in order to get the eggs back. At the end, it’s having the eggs on hand that partly saves the group, as Amanda gives them back and then Grant uses a replica of their resonating chamber to send them away. It’s a really nice sequence; just like the T-Rex was shown in LOST WORLD to have parenting instincts, the Raptors here are given the same addition to their characterization.

The third dinosaur with major screen time are the Pteranodons, giant winged dinosaurs that become a threat when the group wanders into the aviary. The Pteranodon sequence is the most frightening of the encounters, mixing the big bird’s ability to fly and walk. They also just look flat-out creepy with their massive wings and pointed beak. A Pteranodon captures Eric and tosses him to its younglings as food, and Eric has to fend off a mass of small, chomping, hungry babies. Good stuff. The sequence where the group is attacked by these animals is shot largely in the fog, and full credit to the production team for giving us such different kinds of battles: plane, forest, laboratory, rain, water, fog … JP3 never feels repetitive, and this Pteranodon battle starts up high on some shaky metal walkways, moves to the dino’s nest, involves a paragliding rescue, and ends up down in the river.

In the end, the group can save themselves from the various dinos but they need help getting off the island. Alan puts in an emergency call to Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), who he’s still in love with, even though she’s moved on and married a guy who works for the State department. There was a really nice opening scene between them where Alan was visiting for dinner, and it was good to see the two of them together again, even under these circumstances. John Hammond and Ian Malcolm aren’t around this time, but there’s a nice bit where Alan asks Eric if he’s read Ian’s book as a way of measuring his own book (and thus himself) against the mathematician.

All told, JURASSIC PARK 3 doesn’t reach the legendary heights of the first film in the franchise, nor does it embrace the darkness of the sequel. Instead, it cleverly melds the two films; while Alan is, like Malcolm, a bit freaked to be back with the dinos, he recovers much quicker, allowing for a film that celebrates dinosaurs even as it shows how dangerous they can be. JP3 is a much more enjoyable film that LOST WORLD, with plenty of small humor sprinkled throughout all the running and fighting. It’s the kind of film that I appreciate more with each subsequent viewing, as the professionalism that went into every aspect of the film’s production becomes increasingly pronounced.

Without question, I’ll be waiting in line for the next chapter.

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JURASSIC PARK Review Index

JURASSIC PARK: We’re Gonna Make a Fortune with This Place
THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK: From Capitalist to Naturalist in Four Years
JURASSIC PARK III: This How You Play God