The Polar Express Sucks

It’s time to upset the apple cart: The Polar Express is not a good movie.

Any time I speak out in opposition of a beloved Christmas movie I get pushback. I did that with White Christmas and I still haven’t heard the end of it.

That’s just one of the things about tradition. Start tipping those sacred cows and people are going to have kittens. Funny how that works.

The Polar Express is based upon a wildly successful Christmas book upon which the movie is based. That children’s book was written in 1985 by Chris Van Allsberg.

Van Allsberg not only wrote the book but he illustrated it, which gave the book not only its charm but also its runaway success. It captivated children of the 1980s, especially little boys.

The book tells the story of a young boy who boards a magical train on Christmas Eve bound for the North Pole, where he receives a sleigh bell from Santa.

The book sold millions of copies and by the time it was adapted for the silver screen most of those who grew up with the book, the story, and its branding were now adults. In other words, it was a project looking for a pile of money to be made.

In 2004, Academy Award winning director Robert Zemekis, he of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future fame, was tapped to direct The Polar Express with everyone’s favorite actor of the 1990s, Tom Hanks, pegged to play seven different roles in the animated film.

What could possibly go wrong, right?

The film has earned more than $300 million at the box office and has been a merchandising machine, pumping out not only fresh copies of the book but products ranging from Christmas ornaments to Lionel train models. Across the country venues have scrambled in the years since to replicate the magic of Christmas themed train rides with Polar Express excursions in locations over several states.

That all makes it a Christmas classic, right?

A “cult favorite” in film-speak means the movie gets replayed faithfully every Christmas much like It’s A Wonderful Life or Christmas Vacation.

Well, not so fast.

The Internet, not known for holding back, has for more than 20 years blasted on social media all that is wrong with The Polar Express.

In fact, if there is a tradition associated with The Polar Express it comes from fresh pounding, Christmas after Christmas, of what an awful-no-good-very-bad movie it is.

From the vacant, expressionless animation to movie elements added to a simple heartfelt story the voice of the fan will not be silenced.

I would even say The Polar Express has genuine hate attached to it.

“Let’s talk about the absolutely rancid vibes of this movie that traumatizes children every holiday season since it cursed our screens back in 2004. This is not the wholesome family Christmas movie it claims to be. The Polar Express is a heart-racing, shudder-inducing, edge-of-your-seat horror movie…” says Buzzfeed.

This is perhaps the singular criticism of The Polar Express movie: it’s just not true to the book.

The book takes 15 minutes to read if you stop to look at the pictures. The movie is 2-hours long and they had to add a lot to it in order to sell it as a movie and to, of course, merchandise it.

A train that slides on ice? That’s a video game. Santa hands the kid a bell? That’s an ornament.

Famed movie review site Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie 55%. Some feel that is generous.

“This movie from start to finish was weird and confusing. I really wish I could go back and not watch it again.”

That’s the most common sentiment, built on the hope that taking a mystical train to the North Pole is a magical idea.

That’s the idea the book sold.

But the movie? The Polar Express traded out the magic of Santa for the heart of a lump of coal. The Polar Express North Pole is plastic and magicless and Santa himself is corporate, unfeeling and profiting from the servitude of elves and reindeer.

As one mother shared with me: “until my son was 7 we had to watch this every Christmas at least five times. Then he decided around that age that trains were no longer it and he banned us from watching it anymore. Thank God.”

The kids of the 1980s and 1990s who grew up with the book actually hate this movie. They hate it like they hate fruitcake. When it comes to Christmas, that’s real hate.

Many parents complain that the movie goes beyond bad when it comes to certain elements that rival “Christmas classics” have problems with. The kid beating that happens in It’s a Wonderful Life? That’s literally child’s play compared to The Polar Express. The bullying that Rudolph endures from his fellow reindeer? That’s nothing.

The Polar Express embraces themes of kidnapping on a train of terror. The main character, a boy who doesn’t even have a name, relentlessly creates problems that he can never solve without in the involvement of people who just magically appear without explanation.

Like the ghost at the top of the train.

Where did this character come from, other than a belch in the obnoxious mind of Tom Hanks? Without the pointless ghost the nameless boy would have died for his foolish decision to go outside in the dead of winter to ride on top of a speeding train.

The Polar Express just becomes a bigger nightmare with every mile it moves down the tracks.

The worst part of it all? They are threatening to give it a sequel, to continue the nightmare. Announced two years ago in 2024 The Polar Express 2 evidently examines what happened with the kids on the train grew up. Watch:

Give up on this as a Christmas classic.

If you own it on DVD, throw it away. If you have it buried in your Amazon library, make sure your grandkids don’t know that you have it.

Get them the book instead.