the polar express

Director: robert zemeckis

Actor: tom hanks,chris coppola,michael jeter,leslie zemeckis

Data Published: Wed Nov 10 2004

Genres: Animation,Adventure,Comedy,Family,Fantasy,Musical

Key Words: santa claus character,christmas movie,male protagonist,based on children's book,train engineer

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338348/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polar_Express_(film)

Description: The Polar Express is a movie starring Tom Hanks, Chris Coppola, and Michael Jeter. On Christmas Eve, a young boy embarks on a magical adventure to the North Pole on the Polar Express, while learning about friendship, bravery, and...

Plot: On the night of Christmas Eve, a Grand Rapids, Michigan boy is growing bitterly skeptical of the existence of Santa Claus. As he struggles to sleep, he is roused by the arrival of a steam locomotive on the street outside his home, and dons his robe to investigate, tearing the robe's pocket as he retrieves it. Outside, the train's conductor (Tom Hanks) introduces the train as the Polar Express, bound for the North Pole. The boy initially declines to board, but jumps aboard the train as it pulls away. In a passenger car, he befriends a spirited and amicable girl, and a condescending know-it-all. The train stops to pick up an impoverished child, Billy, who also declines to board; Billy changes his mind, and the boy applies the emergency brake to allow him to catch up to the train, much to the conductor's chagrin. As Billy sits alone in the train's rear dining car, hot chocolate is served in the passenger car, and the girl saves her hot chocolate for Billy. As she and the conductor cross to the dining car, the boy notices she left her ticket behind unpunched, but loses hold of the ticket between the cars when he attempts to return it. The ticket reenters the passenger car, but not before the conductor notices its absence and escorts the girl back to the rear car. The know-it-all claims that the conductor will jettison the girl from the back of the train; the boy recovers the ticket and dashes to the dining car in search of the conductor, climbing onto the roof from the rear platform. He meets a hobo camping on the roof, who offers him coffee and discusses the existence of Santa Claus and belief in ghosts. The hobo skis with the boy along the tops of the cars towards the train's coal tender, where the hobo disappears. Here, the boy discovers that the girl has been made to supervise the locomotive while engineers Steamer and Smokey replace the train's headlight. The train is forced to stop while the conductor disperses a herd of caribou, whereupon the engineers return to the cabin and the boy, girl and conductor remain on the catwalk on the front of the locomotive. The throttle's split pin sheers off, causing the train to accelerate uncontrollably down a 179-degree grade and onto a frozen lake, where the engineers repair the throttle with a hairpin and drift the train to realign it with the tracks. The boy returns the girl's ticket, and as the three return to the passenger car, the boy is accosted by an Ebenezer Scrooge marionette (controlled by the hobo), taunting him and calling him a doubter. The train finally arrives at the North Pole, where the conductor announces that one of the passengers will be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas, from Santa himself. The girl discovers Billy still alone in the rear car, and she and the boy persuade him to come along; however, the boy accidentally unhitches the car, sending it back along the line to a railway turntable in Santa's workshop. The children sneak through an elf command center and a gift sorting office before accidentally being dumped into Santa's sack, where they discover that the know-it-all stowed away along with them, hoping to open his Christmas presents early. The elves rescue them as Santa arrives, and the boy grows frustrated, unable to see Santa through the crowd. A jingle bell flies loose from the galloping reindeers' reins; the boy initially cannot hear it ring, until he finds it within himself to believe. He returns the bell to Santa as he passes, and Santa selects the boy to receive the first gift of Christmas. The boy asks to keep the jingle bell, and places it in his robe pocket. Four of the elves use a handcar to trundle the wayward passenger car back to the train as the children all board the Polar Express to return home, but the then boy discovers that the pocket was torn and that the bell had fallen out. He returns home and awakens Christmas morning to find a present containing the bell. He holds it to his ear and shakes it; his parents, not believing in Santa, lament how the bell is "broken".