Day: 13 December 2020

Back in January 2005 I wrote about the Polar Express on my blog (because film reviews were a thing I seemed to do quite a bit back then). I said that I could see the film enduring.

Almost 21 years later we watched it again, streaming from Amazon Prime. It was £4.99 – I wonder what we paid the first time? In 2005 I really enjoyed it and I did on this viewing too. I may have seen it once in the intervening years but, unlike The Nightmare before Christmas, it’s not a Christmas staple in my life so there were many things I didn’t remember (and that’s no criticism because I don’t remember the detail of many films that I have seen).

I saw the original in it’s big screen 3D glory and noted that the filmmakers “used the 3D format to full-effect” but I don’t think it lost much on my 2D television.

I said I thought this film would ‘endure’ – meaning it would last – and I think it has lasted well. In my opinion, Tom Hanks is still brilliant as the main voice of this movie. Glad I watched it again.

According to the Internet Movie Database, the basic premise of the movie S.W.A.T. that I saw on the plane is, “An imprisoned drug kingpin offers a huge cash reward to anyone who can break him out of police custody, and only the LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics team can prevent it”. It’s about all you need to know, really.

If you read this site a great deal, you will know that I have a strange love of action movies. I think they are, by and large, a huge waste of time, and yet I constantly enjoy them and will watch the same one again and again. This would be no exception. The plot could be passed off as a true story – more or less – but (and correct me if you’re in LA), helicopters being shot out of the sky, and races through the subway tunnels can not be an everyday/week/year occurrence.

Still, Colin Farrell is Jim Street, the cop on the boundaries who makes good, and Samuel L. Jackson is always enjoyable in everything he does. Even LL Cool J was good, and it’s always good to see Josh Charles on the screen.

Go and enjoy this movie, and then see Colin in the Man of the Moment section.