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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 998
Released: October 28, 2008 |
| Our Price: $7.89 |
| Used Price: $7.95 |
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MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A disillusioned little boy, just old enough to doubt the existence of Santa Claus, has the adventure of a lifetime one fateful Christmas Eve. Clad in his pajamas, he climbs aboard a magic train to the North Pole, driven by a kindly train conductor (voiced by Tom Hanks). Among myriad jaw-dropping moments, the train plummets brakeless through crystalline mountains in a simulated roller coaster ride. Going off the rails, skidding sideways, and snaking violently across a frozen lake, the train arrives at the North Pole (a vast, glowing city of brick buildings). At that moment, the car carrying the kids detaches and they're sent tumbling down never-ending chutes and slides until they land in the middle of Santa's Workshop. With its fascinating tale and impressive technical frolics, The Polar Express 3-D is destined to become both a holiday classic and a new turning point in the art of animated cinema.
Description of The Polar Express Presented in 3-D:
Destined to become a holiday perennial, The Polar Express also heralded a brave new world of all-digital filmmaking. Critics and audiences were divided between those who hailed it as an instant classic that captures the visual splendor and evocative innocence of Chris Van Allsburg's popular children's book, and those who felt that the innovative use of "performance capture"--to accurately translate live performances into all-digital characters--was an eerie and not-quite-lifelike distraction from the story's epic-scale North Pole adventure. In any case it's a benign, kind-hearted celebration of the yuletide spirit, especially for kids who have almost grown out of their need to believe in Santa Claus. Tom Hanks is the nominal "star" who performs five different computer-generated characters, but it's the visuals that steal this show, as director Robert Zemeckis indulges his tireless pursuit of technological innovation. No matter how you respond to the many wonders on display, it's clear that The Polar Express represents a significant milestone in the digital revolution of cinema. If it also fills you with the joy of Christmas (in spite of its Nuremberg-like rally of frantic elves), so much the better. --Jeff Shannon
The Polar Express Presented in 3-D Reviews:
2D is better than 3D 
2009-12-16 - Not sure if it's my equipements, but I bought 2 different 3D movies (Polar Express and Journey to the Center of the Earth), they both look very colorless in the 3D version. First, when you slap on the 3D glasses (and I bought the quality 3D plastic glasses, not the paper glasses given with the movie box), the red eye looks dark, like a blind eye. You can only see out of the blue eye. When we adjust the brightness/contrast, you can see more with the red eye, but the movie appears not as vividly. The 2D version shows much better color. And this 3D version is nothing like the 3D in the theater when we saw this at IMAX. We could see the "golden ticket" flying in front of your face. This home-version 3D doesn't do that. It's very barely 3D in our opinion.
Fantastic 
2009-12-14 - Ok, lets stop the whinning about the 3D effects. Turn up the brightness of your hd tv.sit back and shut up & enjoy the movie. No it's nothing like the theater version of 3D that I agree, but this is tv folks and by the way, at it's best. If you were honest on your own review than you do know that when you purchased this 3D version it came with a 2d version as well. I never once heard those people mention that in there reviews. Hmm makes me wonder if they ever purchased the Blu ray version..I ejoyed it in 3D as well. It is what it is. A great movie in 3D and in 2DIf your not happy with the 3D, than plop in the disc 2 and watch it in 2D, it's just that simple folks! Watch it and become a kid again!
3D Version is AWFUL 
2009-12-14 - We own the original version, bought the 3D for my sons. We tried and tried, but it is not 3D. The red and blue glasses don't help, nor do the nicer 3D glasses we own. What an immense disappointment.
What's not to love about this movie
2009-12-12 - Most of you have already seen the movie. But you haven't seen the extras. And you haven't seen the movie in Blu-ray HD. My family has watched The Polar Express twice in the last two weeks and I expect that we will watch it again around Christmas time for some years to come.
Big Disappointment - very poor 3-D - Holiday classic flushed down the toilet 
2009-12-11 - I love The Polar Express movie itself. I love Tom Hanks. I have seen the movie in the theaters, and believe me, that was great. I thought the 3-D version would equal or top the theatrical experience. Boy was I wrong!
When I played the 3-D version of this movie on my LCD computer monitor, I expected to be wowed by the movie. The 3-D visual effects when something is coming toward you are amazing. However, the other imagery is just awful. Doubled images are just not meant for a movie of this caliber! Shame on Warner Brothers! Their holiday classic is terrible in 3-D! I expected a much better quality movie than this!
If you want the best version of The Polar Express, you might as well buy the 2-D version alone. The 3-D version is not the best, it actually is the opposite, THE WORST version of a movie I have ever seen. If Warner Brothers should have released this movie in Real3D, it would have been FAR better. The anaglyphic glasses and visual imperfections have TARNISHED the reputation and high prestige of this movie!
WARNER BROTHERS, YOU SHOULD RE-RELEASE THIS MOVIE IN REAL3D! YOUR MOVIES HAVE BEEN GREAT, UP TO NOW!
