| Director: Robert Zemeckis | Producer: Zemeckis, Gary Goetzman, Steve Starkey, William Teitler |
| Script: Zemeckis, William Broyles, Jr. | Art Direction: Tony Fanning, James Hegedus, Alicia Maccarone, Norman Newberry |
| Music: Alan Silvestri | Photography: Don Burgess, Robert Presley |
Warner Bros./Castle Rock , 99 min. Release Date: Nov. 10, 2004.
| Character | Voice /Actor |
| Boy | Tom Hanks/Daryl Sabara |
| Sister Sarah | Leslie Zemeckis/Isabella Peregrina |
| Know-It-All | Eddie Deezen |
| Hero Girl | Nona Gaye |
| Lonely Boy | Peter Scolari/Jimmy Bennett |
| Smokey/Steamer | Michael Jeter/Andre Sogliuzzo |
| Conductor/Hobo/Santa | Tom Hanks |
Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis create something deeper and more mysterious, more filled with wonderment, than your usual slam-bang family entertainment. The film has the quality of a lot of lasting children's entertainment: It's a little creepy. Not creepy in an unpleasant way, but in that sneaky, teasing way that lets you know eerie things could happen. There's a deeper, shivery tone, instead of the mindless jolliness of the usual Christmas movie. This one creates a world of its own, like The Wizard of Oz or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, in which the wise child does not feel too complacent.--Roger Ebert
So much toil, trouble and talent (not to mention $165 million) has gone into the task of transforming Chris Van Allsburg's slender 1985 Christmas story into a gargantuan attempt to redefine animation that it seems Scroogish to spoil the party. But the movie just doesn't work. . . . Sadly, nothing in The Polar Express seems touched by human hands. The eyes of the characters, from the boy to Santa himself (also Hanks), have a glazed look that is almost spooky in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of way. The result is a failed and lifeless experiment in which everything goes wrong.--Peter Travers
It's hard to calibrate magic, harder still to conjure it flawlessly, especially the magic of Christmas that a child experiences. In The Polar Express, director Robert Zemeckis and star Tom Hanks try for that special combination of creative stardust and technological wizardry they need to bring alive Chris Van Allsburg's 1986 picture book loved by millions. But the magic touch is just beyond their grasp, despite hundreds of millions of dollars and a new computer moviemaking process called performance capture. 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--though no doubt it will entrance plenty of adults and children who love the book.--Michael Wilmington