A slightly different view of the same world.
I finally got around to seeing this movie the other night on DVD. Didn’t really have the desire to see it in the theater. Anyways, here’s my take on the movie.
The first thing I noticed when I first saw the trailers for this movie was that it seemed “creepy” to me. Maybe not the whole movie, but the at least the facial expressions and eyes of the characters. I know that the budget for this movie ($150M) was twice as high as Shrek 2 and that this movie was intended to look as real as possible. I also know that the characters were filmed and motion captured. The problem is, I would have rather seen a live action movie using the actors. You could have saved about 1/3 of the budget for the movie and still had the fantastic scenery, colors, and backgrounds. I mean, if you’ve already commissioned someone to act, then why not put it on film? It seems like more time would go into motion capture and translating to CGI than making a traditional movie. I know that animated movies will draw larger audiences and that children tend to respond better as well. However, as advanced as this movie is, it still shows how far away we are from realistic animation. I got the feeling watching this movie that the close up shots of the characters would look better from a distance, or without staring at it. Kinda like how Madden and NCAA football games look now. The non-character stuff is probably the best looking animation I’ve ever seen though. The train and snow look amazing. The physics used in scenes with snow drifting and wind look incredible.
Having never read the book I must say that I enjoyed the story. I don’t know how faithful it is to the book, but I get the sense that it must be very close. I base this on the way the movie has been advertised for both the theater and the DVD release. I don’t think I heard anyone ever say that the movie wasn’t true to the children’s book. My biggest beef with the store was how fast it seemed to wrap up at the end. Once Santa took off, there was like 10 minutes left. All this adventure, all these twists and then BOOM! Santa gives him a bell which he loses on the way home. He wakes up the next day and finds the bell in a present. Yay! I believe in Santa Claus! I would have liked to see at least one more peril on the way home. Just to see if he could make it back in time for the morning.
I liked the music. In fact, the more I listen to the movie play at home, the more catchy it seems. I have a 2 year old son who has been playing it for 3 days now in case you were wondering what I mean by that. The songs are Christmas-y. Even the traditional songs that are played in the movie feel right for it. It’s not something that I would personally play to get in the holiday mood, but I would not mind if I heard one or two songs here and there.
This is the kind of movie where the DVD extras are worth watching. I have yet to watch any of them, however, I thoroughly enjoy “special features” on movies. I want to see how this movie was made more than I want to watch the movie again.
I probably sound like I didn’t enjoy the movie a great deal, whereas I actually did like it quite a bit. In writing reviews for movies, I always seem to pick at movies or rave about them. In this case, I found more to pick at than I did to rave about.
On a scale of 1-10, I give the movie a 6.
The first thing I noticed when I first saw the trailers for this movie was that it seemed “creepy” to me. Maybe not the whole movie, but the at least the facial expressions and eyes of the characters. I know that the budget for this movie ($150M) was twice as high as Shrek 2 and that this movie was intended to look as real as possible. I also know that the characters were filmed and motion captured. The problem is, I would have rather seen a live action movie using the actors. You could have saved about 1/3 of the budget for the movie and still had the fantastic scenery, colors, and backgrounds. I mean, if you’ve already commissioned someone to act, then why not put it on film? It seems like more time would go into motion capture and translating to CGI than making a traditional movie. I know that animated movies will draw larger audiences and that children tend to respond better as well. However, as advanced as this movie is, it still shows how far away we are from realistic animation. I got the feeling watching this movie that the close up shots of the characters would look better from a distance, or without staring at it. Kinda like how Madden and NCAA football games look now. The non-character stuff is probably the best looking animation I’ve ever seen though. The train and snow look amazing. The physics used in scenes with snow drifting and wind look incredible.
Having never read the book I must say that I enjoyed the story. I don’t know how faithful it is to the book, but I get the sense that it must be very close. I base this on the way the movie has been advertised for both the theater and the DVD release. I don’t think I heard anyone ever say that the movie wasn’t true to the children’s book. My biggest beef with the store was how fast it seemed to wrap up at the end. Once Santa took off, there was like 10 minutes left. All this adventure, all these twists and then BOOM! Santa gives him a bell which he loses on the way home. He wakes up the next day and finds the bell in a present. Yay! I believe in Santa Claus! I would have liked to see at least one more peril on the way home. Just to see if he could make it back in time for the morning.
I liked the music. In fact, the more I listen to the movie play at home, the more catchy it seems. I have a 2 year old son who has been playing it for 3 days now in case you were wondering what I mean by that. The songs are Christmas-y. Even the traditional songs that are played in the movie feel right for it. It’s not something that I would personally play to get in the holiday mood, but I would not mind if I heard one or two songs here and there.
This is the kind of movie where the DVD extras are worth watching. I have yet to watch any of them, however, I thoroughly enjoy “special features” on movies. I want to see how this movie was made more than I want to watch the movie again.
I probably sound like I didn’t enjoy the movie a great deal, whereas I actually did like it quite a bit. In writing reviews for movies, I always seem to pick at movies or rave about them. In this case, I found more to pick at than I did to rave about.
On a scale of 1-10, I give the movie a 6.
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