My girlfriend made me go to this as penance for taking her to Saw and The Grudge over Halloween. I wasn’t expecting much. It turned out to be better than I thought it would be, but not great and not a classic. I’m certain that there will be much worse movies this Christmas. This should work fine as a movie to take your kids.
I didn’t mind the message, but:
I was kind of sadened when I realized that I wouldn’t hear the bell either.
I have few questions though:
Why did the train have a ghost? Was that some Yiddish I heard from the elf supervisor? What was up with that?
Also, I think the “uncanny valley” thing nailed the creepiness factor right on the head. The animation is just lacking something with the facial features.
That’s more likely the theater than the movie. It seemed to have normal sound levels to me. There were a few things about the train that were loud, but it’s what I would have expected.
They liked it, didn’t love it. It unfortunately gave the older one yet another opportunity to dispel the Santa Claus myth to her younger sister.
Unlike bienville, I kinda liked it. Like bienville, I’ve never walked out on a movie ever (I prefer the falling asleep route). The train top ghost reminded me of Tom Waits and I could’ve done without the Steve Tyler elf.
Re: The creepy comments or the CGI human characteristics:
Just like conventional artists, they seemed to have a big problem with replicating hands / hand movements. I also noticed the skin texture problems especiall with coloring or showing moisture. The mouths / gums / teeth / lips definitely need a little fine tuning as well.
Any technology that has the potential of giving the Hollywood crowd a diminished sense of job security and smaking a few of them back to reality is a technology that I hope to see improve.
Yeah, this is the main reason I’m not taking my kids. A movie about doubting Christmas just doesn’t seem very Christmas-y to me.
Personally I’d like to go just to see how creepy the animation is. I work in video games so I’m actually interested in it from a professional standpoint, but I don’t want my kids to get the message that Christmas is something you have to work at.
We’ll go see The Incredibles a second time instead. Or Spongebob. Spongebob is sweet.
Also … I’ve heard of other schools taking field trips to see this movie. What’s up with that? Field trips are supposed to be educational … you know?
(hijack) I was quite pleased when I went downstate to the IMAX theatre to see “Galapagos” - an entirely evolution-based movie - to see about 200 kids, from ages 10 to 18 on a giant field trip to see the movie. I was happy to see that evolution teaching is obviously alive and well in even Upstate NY. (/hijack)