Details about what i like and don't about it - The Polar Express Reviews

I liked it a lot, but there's not much to the story. It's very symbolic, but I think it's the graphics and the animation that brought the movie to live. I also think it's very realistic. Not that much in the graphics.. i mean the texture, hair, even freckles, snow, ice, and all the details, all that are more realistic than Shrek. I was pretty impressed with the improvements of hair movement in this movie. No longer do all the strans of hair move altogether in 1 direct path, now the strans of hair are grouped into many groups, and move in wavy motion. For example, Fiona's hair in Shrek, when she is frozen in air fighting the people in the forest, her hair shakes, but they all move together, like anime hair, where hair is not in strans but a whole chunk. In Polar Express, when the boy is sticking his head out the train, the wind blows and the hair doesn't all move the same way, but rather grouped in to many groups (no more big chunks but rather many many smaller chunks) that move differently. This makes it a whole lot more realistic. I was also impressed with the level of details of the ice frozen on the bottom of the train. However, there's one thing that i think the 3d animations need to work on.. If you've noticed with all the 3D animations, the movements (of the body/arm legs/facial expressions) are all very stiff. By this i mean for example, when the boy is chasing after the train, his body moves forward, and so do the arms. basically the arms follow the body movement. However, in real life, this is not quite the case, at least not like that. Think of it as... on a bus. When the bus moves forward, the people in the bus follows, but not immediately... there's a backward movement on the passengers before they follow the foreward movement on the bus. This is the hierarchy of movements where there's a main force of movement and the secondary movement does not follow the primary immediately. Or else it becomes a very stiff movement. This also happens in facial expressions... have you noticed that the top lips, nose area of the 3D animations are also very stiff? They need to study facial muscles more. When the characters are saying something with "M" like "mom" you notice their lips close, but do not compress. Try saying mom, your lips not only touch each other but rather pressed together, your top lip actually moves up a little because of the compression. Well, what bothered me about the movie is that the top lips of the characters looks like they're chapped... not much movement. I mean they know to compress the ball when it bounces and hits a surface. it's the same way with lips..... so my point is... well, it was a good movie over all :) Filled with Christmas Spirit. Another thing that impressed me was the imagination... All the high-tech stuff involved in the movie with the elves, it's really amazing. The humor in the movie is also not the stupid humor like Shrek (I do like Shrek a lot), it's serious humor. Another scene I really adore is the part where the elves are trying to let go of the baloon on the top of the aircraft, it's very creative! although it was like a 2 second scene.... I would definitly buy this movie when it comes out on DVD. I like the irony at the end, but I thought it could be more powerful than that.. since it's the end of the story