The Polar Express

Based on a book none of us have ever read, this 2004 movie was not one that interested us enough to see it in the theater. Now that we have The Polar Express on DVD, though, we watch it every year. The Husband is an especial fan, and he picked it tonight. It is a tribute to faith, of believing without having to see. "The bell still rings for me."

trailer:


Moria says,

The performances captured are fantastic.... Robert Zemeckis directs the film with epic dramatic flourish and attention to the minutiae of detail
...
And The Polar Express is whichever way you look at it – technically, artistically, in terms of all the expected plaintive emotion of seasonal family entertainment – a magical film.

Roger Ebert says this film

is 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, sidestepping all the tiresome Christmas cliches that children have inflicted on them this time of year. The conductor tells Hero Boy he thinks he really should get on the train, and I have the same advice for you.

CNN, the New York Times, Salon.com, Rolling Stone and BBC don't like it. EW doesn't like how different the film is from the book.