Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, William Broyles Jr. (based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg)
"Two things always look good in a film - a train and snow." - Federico Fellini
A visual blending of storybook imagery and video game graphics which - arguably like a secular, spiritually-lobotomized take on Christmas - is more style than substance with the road trip story occasionally interrupted by a roller coaster ride (complete with POV shots for the 3D experience) - at least one highlight is the train skidding along a large area of ice and the snow in 3D is one of the things that "looks good". A young Santa skeptic - the religious analogy was brought by by Doug Walker in an episode of his Nostalgia Critic series (http://blip.tv/nostalgiacritic/nostalgia-critic-christmas-list-top-11-2999174) - finds himself on a journey to the North Pole by travelling on the titular transport in a story that is not dissimilar to 1982's The Snowman. Once he gets there, he finds a North Pole that is Mont St Michel meets Tracy Island (an underground facility includes television screens showing rolling CCTV footage of sleeping children. Er....) with a Vatican Square where masses of elves gather for an audience with Pope Santa, one of the adult male roles played by Tom Hanks - the other key role being the train conductor whose annoying quirk is that he can punch letters into tickets at supernatural speed.
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