The Polar Express

Herald rating: * * *

Technology triumphs, too, in this breathtaking production from Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis, the director who broke the boundaries of film-making with Who Framed Roger Rabbit and of schmaltz, with Hanks, in Forrest Gump and Cast Away.

Rabbit intercut live actors and animation for the first time; in this movie Zemeckis uses "performance capture". Human actors perform movements which are translated into animation. To compound this unreal reality, Hanks plays five roles from child to old man, his face and movements represented at different ages and stages on screen at one time.

Chris Van Allsburg, who wrote the novel and also the Jumanji story, doesn't give his central character a name. He's Hero Boy (all characters Hanks unless otherwise indicated), and he's about the age when kids wonder whether there really is a Santa Claus. He wouldn't go to see Santa in the big store, he let his little sister put out Santa's feast before going to bed.

As he lies awake, a train steams down his street. The lad runs outside in dressing-gown and slippers, and the Conductor tells him to get on the Polar Express, which takes kids like him to the North Pole around this time of year.

On the train he makes friends with serious Hero Girl (Nona M. Gaye) and sad Lonely Boy (Peter Scolari), but not with smart-mouthed Know-It-All (Eddie Deezen). As well as the Conductor, he runs into Hobo, who lives on top of the train.

They take a dizzying ride over and through frozen lakes, mountains, valleys and tunnels, on their way to meet Santa and perhaps get their Christmas presents. Or are they? Maybe, the boy fears, it's all just a dream.

A visual masterpiece that could have gone down the same siding as Forrest Gump into Saccharin City, especially given the combo of Hanks, animation and a Christmas story. Fortunately, there's enough gravitas to suggest that it's on track to become a December classic.

* DVD, Video rental today