A friend of mine asked me what I thought of this movie, I told her that it really wasn't that interesting, it felt like a lot of the situations in the movie that were just designed to fill up time. She told me that I probably felt that way since it's aimed for kids. I had to disagree on this one since I noticed a lot of the kids were getting restless while watching this movie.
A really easy way to judge if a 'kids' movie is a good 'kids' movie is simply watching them in the theater. About 30 minutes into Polar Express I noticed that the kids around me (ranging from about 4-12) started doing more then just ask their parents basic little kid questions, they started wiggling around in their seats in that 'I'm bored' fashion little kids do. Then throw in they started asking the really confused questions since they couldn't tell visually what was going on (little kids don't really pay much attention to dialogue unless it's a really funny one liner or mixed in w/ slapstick humor)
Now if you're about to jump all over me stating that this is just what little kids do, since they've got the attention spans of goldfish, I'll have to disagree. The week prior I saw The Incredibles, and the reaction of the kids in that audience was the complete opposite of what I sat thru in Polar Express. In The Incredibles the only thing I really dealt w/ was kids hoopin and hollering to all the excitement, action & slapstick going on. I don't remember any kids breaking out in tears because they started getting bored, or bothering anybody w/ goofy questions because they couldn't tell what was going on. Instead, they just sat back & had a really good time.
So what have I learned from all this My general opinion of this movie fits the general opinion of the audience it was aimed towards. The movie is drawn out and boring.
A really easy way to judge if a 'kids' movie is a good 'kids' movie is simply watching them in the theater. About 30 minutes into Polar Express I noticed that the kids around me (ranging from about 4-12) started doing more then just ask their parents basic little kid questions, they started wiggling around in their seats in that 'I'm bored' fashion little kids do. Then throw in they started asking the really confused questions since they couldn't tell visually what was going on (little kids don't really pay much attention to dialogue unless it's a really funny one liner or mixed in w/ slapstick humor)
Now if you're about to jump all over me stating that this is just what little kids do, since they've got the attention spans of goldfish, I'll have to disagree. The week prior I saw The Incredibles, and the reaction of the kids in that audience was the complete opposite of what I sat thru in Polar Express. In The Incredibles the only thing I really dealt w/ was kids hoopin and hollering to all the excitement, action & slapstick going on. I don't remember any kids breaking out in tears because they started getting bored, or bothering anybody w/ goofy questions because they couldn't tell what was going on. Instead, they just sat back & had a really good time.
So what have I learned from all this My general opinion of this movie fits the general opinion of the audience it was aimed towards. The movie is drawn out and boring.