Tom Hanksas Hero Boy / Father / Conductor / Hobo / Scrooge / Santa ClausThe story
About The Polar Express
On Christmas Eve a boy who is starting to doubt Father Christmas is woken by a steam train pulling up outside his house. He climbs aboard with a carriage full of other children and rides north, watched over by a brisk conductor and joined en route by a drifter on the carriage roof. The journey to the North Pole tests his nerve and ends with a gift only a believer can hear.
The CineClaus verdict
The animation divides people — the faces sit in a valley some find eerie and others never notice — and where you land on that decides the film. Underneath it is a sincere story about the exact age at which belief starts to wobble, which is a braver subject than it looks.
The train itself is beautifully realised. Best on the largest screen in the house.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: fine from about four, with a caveat: several sequences are genuinely tense, and the animation itself unsettles some small children.
BBFC advice: Mild threat.
Content advice & accessibility
- Where the advice comes from
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official U certificate, and never looser than it.
