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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Polar Express (Alan Silvestri/Glen Ballard)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the regular commercial album if you desire the
award-winning songs and a basic summary of Alan Silvestri's conservative
and predictable contribution to the fluffy holiday environment of the
film.
Avoid it... on the "deluxe" commercial product unless you seek an overpriced board book and cheap jingle bell; in terms of the score, avoid the promotional and bootleg albums unless you seek mostly instrumental regurgitations of the songs.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Polar Express: (Alan Silvestri/Glen Ballard) So
much hype was generated about the production process of making
super-realistic animated characters that many reviews of Robert
Zemeckis' The Polar Express completely ignored the fact that the
2004 film was a musical. Indeed, the adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's
relatively recent children's story was so concerned with its look that
its sound seemed like an afterthought. The process of taking Tom Hanks
and other performers and using body dot technology to allow computers to
mimic their acting did truly produce, outside of Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within, a form of realism not seen in animated form, though
this breakthrough came at a price. Despite all of Zemeckis' team's
endeavors, a disastrous miscalculation in the rendering of the
characters' eyes (including a devastatingly poor representation of the
eyes' focal points) caused every person in the film to exhibit a creepy,
glazed-over look. Some reviewers did not let this detail stop them from
rating The Polar Express very highly, though audiences rewarded
Warner Brothers' $165 million investment with only $175 million in
grosses, a notable disappointment given the project's expectations. The
general darkness in the overall rendering (the first feature-length film
for a 3D IMAX format) was also a detriment to the production's appeal to
children in the age bracket targeted by the book, despite the great care
taken to extend the illustrative feel of Van Allsburg's creation to the
screen. The story itself had to be expanded significantly to fill 90
minutes of screen time, though Zemeckis' own additions to the plot were
well received. Compensating for the potential hazards awaiting audiences
in the gloomy and mysterious visuals was ultimately the task of
Zemeckis' usual collaborator, Alan Silvestri, who teamed up with Glen
Ballard to create five original songs for The Polar Express.
Silvestri then took those melodies and incorporated them into a short
underscore that largely relies heavily upon them, with the exception of
one substantial theme of mystery specific to the score. A collection of
classic Christmas-related pop songs from an era past were employed,
allowing Zemeckis to throw some Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby into the
soundscape for (likely) nostalgic reasons.
Upon the arrival of the awards season, Silvestri and Ballard received the bulk of the recognition aimed at The Polar Express (along with sound-related technical nominations), with their Josh Groban-performed song "Believe" receiving a Grammy Award along with Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. Of the songs, "Believe" is not surprisingly the most memorable, used as the score's primary thematic identity as well. Its tone is appropriately inspirational, its melody pretty, and Groban's performance is, as usual, gorgeous. But that can't hide the fact that the structure of the song owes a considerable amount to Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera and James Horner and Barry Mann's "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail. This nagging feeling of similarities between the music in The Polar Express and previous films is perpetual problem, with other melodic portions resembling Randy Newman's The Natural (oddly) and, in the instrumental portions, John Williams' Home Alone and Danny Elfman's Edward Scissorhands. The two hyperactive ensemble songs led by Hanks, "The Polar Express" and "Hot Chocolate" are countered by the redeeming and subdued "character in longing" song of stereotype in "When Christmas Comes to Town." Of more relation to the first song is the vintage jazz and rock combination in "Rockin' on the Top of the World." An original choral hymn (in traditional style) was penned by the composers in "Spirit of the Season," a piece with all the beauty of the holidays but vacant perhaps of any deep sense of authenticity (which gives you pause when you contemplate Christmas music recorded during the summer). Most of these songs contain orchestral backing that provides a strong connection to the underscore cues, courtesy of common orchestration by Silvestri regulars William Ross and Conrad Pope. As such, the score tracks in The Polar Express maintain the same general tone as the songs, not to mention their constructs nearly the entire time as well. Silvestri wrote about half an hour of strictly orchestral material for the film, and it would not be surprising to learn that a tally of all the songs' melodies occupy about 25 of those minutes, if not more. Never are these themes dramatically altered, their development stagnant from start to finish. On the commercial album for The Polar Express, Silvestri summarizes four of the songs in "Suite from The Polar Express," a piece that doesn't provide any unique thematic material of the score's own. That product contains only one true score piece, "Seeing is Believing," and this cue gives the listener a few moments with Silvestri's original mystery theme before heading off to quote passages from several famous Christmas carols. This theme of mystery, highlighted by deep male voices and whimsical xylophone, best accompanies the score cue "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" in the film and on the various promotional and bootlegged albums that exist for The Polar Express. Also of possible note from the actual score are the sometimes lengthy recordings of standard Silvestri action tones in "Approaching Flat Top Tunnel" and "On the Ice," though the composer never whips the ensemble into the kind of convincing and satisfying frenzy heard earlier in the year in Van Helsing. Lengthy sequences of the lighter songs' melodies exist in the substantial cues "Meeting Santa Claus" and "The Ride Home," quoting "Believe" and "Spirit of the Season" liberally and often pausing for extended moments of quietly alternating high choral beauty reminiscent of the previously mentioned Elfman classic. Silvestri didn't have much latitude when working on this score, obviously, for there's only so much in terms of instrumentation and structure that you can do with this topic. He resorts to the usual tambourines, bells, chimes, and other expected sounds frequently, and this constantly upbeat holiday spirit does become tiresome after a while. The album situation for The Polar Express is somewhat complicated, though a hard limit on the amount of music recorded for the film does simplify matters. The commercial album contains only a few minutes of Silvestri's own score material not connected to the songs. Released a month later was a Warner Brothers "For Your Consideration" promotional album featuring five untitled tracks amounting to 27 minutes. Fans eventually took the two albums and combined them to form "complete" bootlegs, some featuring an alternate edit of the suite heard on the commercial product. The promotional score material is adequate at every moment, but, like the film, doesn't really live up to the hype. Silvestri and Ballard deserved their paychecks for their work here, but it's naggingly derivative and was unable to expand itself beyond the constraints of the genre and season. "Ho ho ho" thus becomes "ho-hum." ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
2004 Retail Editions:
Total Time: 46:06
* original songs written by Alan Silvestri and/or Glen Ballard (total time: 19:31) (original score total time: 9:49) 2004 Promotional Album: Total Time: 27:01
2005 Bootlegs: Total Time: 45:55
(track arrangements and total times vary significantly between the many bootleg versions)
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the regular retail album includes no extra information about the
score or film (other than extensive photography and movie quotes). The packaging of the
2004 "Deluxe Edition" contains an illustrated board book (with the story of the film
for children) the size of a double jewel case and a small jingle bell. This product was
met with significant dissatisfaction. The promotional and bootleg albums have no formal
insert other than a single-page front cover.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Polar Express are Copyright © 2004, 2005, Warner Sunset/Reprise Records (Regular), Warner Sunset/Reprise Records (Deluxe), Promotional, Bootlegs and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/19/09 (and not updated significantly since). |
