Polar Express, The

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

A story that soars with breakneck pace but slows in all the tender moments. Visually, this train ride is both majestic and edge-of-your-seat.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An enchanting, beautiful and brilliantly imagined film.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A movie for more than one season; it will become a perennial, shared by the generations. It has a haunting, magical quality because it has imagined its world freshly and played true to it,

Washington Post Jennifer Frey

Every detail of the beloved children's classic is meticulously reconstructed in the film, with visuals that can only be described as wondrous.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A truly satisfying holiday picture, the kind everyone can enjoy.

Film Threat Rory L. Aronsky

Just like “It’s A Wonderful Life” is shown on TV every year, The Polar Express should appear in IMAX theaters that traditionally.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

So delightful it should come with a parental advisory: "Jaded adults, beware. Viewing this may pierce your shell of cynicism and spark a renewed belief in the magic of movie-making."

Miami Herald Peter Debruge

It's a good, old-fashioned North Pole adventure.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It's a sensation - both a milestone in computer-animation and a likely Christmas classic.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Devoid of 21st-century irony, this visually stunning, action-packed yuletide treat is sweet and, yes, magical in a way that will enchant kids and give older viewers a twinge of nostalgia.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Like the coolest train set a kid ever had. It's not real and the faces on the toy people don't look human, but it has bells and whistles galore and will take you as far as your imagination allows.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Cinematic magic.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

If you have a chance to see the 3-D IMAX version of the movie ignore any objections. But if your only choice is a regular 2-D screen, The Polar Express is still three-fourths of a great movie.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

The story offers lessons in faith and self-esteem; the darker passages of the child's journey are countered by shimmering, cascading beacons of light; and fine period detail adds to the nostalgic glow.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

This movie, which aspires to be a Christmas movie classic on the "It's a Wonderful Life" level, is overwhelming, enjoyable and impressive, without being really entrancing.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

For most of the way, it's indeed quite a ride: a cumulatively exhilarating, visually mouth-dropping, somberly stylish odyssey crammed full of virtuoso animation sequences.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It's hard not to wish this film were more of a piece and less like loud music at the wrong party.

Time Richard Schickel

Tom Hanks doesn't turn Polar Express into much of a thrill ride. For that you need 3-D goggles.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A genuinely handsome film, and it tells a story that is well worth knowing. It's a kind, gentle and sweet holiday confection. But my Christmas wish is that the DVD comes packaged with the book.

Premiere Jessica Letkemann

The Hanks overload feels like The Polar Express is "Being John Malkovich" transmuted into a computer-generated 21st-century children's Christmas film.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Visually, taking its cues (mostly) from Van Allsburg's Hopperesque art, The Polar Express is eye-popping. Storywise, however, it can be eyelid-drooping.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

While the 29 pages of his (Van Allsburg's) mini-classic would have made a superb half-hour TV special, Zemeckis and writer William Broyles Jr. have created a steroidal monster with a heart about one size too small.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Simple and evocative, yet teeming with intriguing visual effects.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The screenplay, by Zemeckis and William Broyles Jr., plumps Van Allsburg's simple fable about the purity of childhood faith in what can't be seen with all sorts of wholly invented characters, complications, and declarations.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Zemeckis and Hanks really seem to think they’re giving us a Christmas movie for the ages and a technology that will change cinema forever. They’re wrong on both counts. The Polar Express is merely a marvelous toy that has somehow become convinced it has a soul.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film's characters, computer-animated over motion-caputure footage of flesh-and-blood performers, are as blank-eyed and rubbery-looking as moving mannequins -- the stuff of nightmares, not dreams.

Variety David Rooney

This visually impressive yet emotional frigid fable could perhaps more accurately be tagged "The Bipolar Express."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

As a spectacle, The Polar Express looks remarkable. As a film, however, it's the equivalent of an elaborately wrapped Christmas present containing a nice new pair of socks.

Village Voice Ed Park

When it comes to the "humans," the atmosphere collapses. Unnervingly smooth, mouths moving in strange, even frightening formations, the Polar people are the least convincing things on-screen, glaring impostors amid the otherwise painstakingly rendered scenery.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The result is another powerful children's story dulled into mediocrity by the worship of technology.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Many moviegoers may find its colors and effects delightful enough to make the experience a thrill. Look beyond the tinsel, though, and you may be disappointed.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

In a word, it’s soulless.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A train wreck of mind-numbing proportions.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Actually, the wonder The Polar Express induces feels something like a coma.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A grave and disappointing failure, as much of imagination as of technology.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The result is a failed and lifeless experiment in which everything goes wrong.