Kids these days demand cutting edge special effects or at least a clever plot with cute charectors. This movie has neither, having lost in its Americanization what the British original did so right.
Kids these days demand cutting edge special effects or at least a clever plot with cute charectors. This movie has neither, having lost in its Americanization what the British original did so right.
audience
40
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 2,792
The internationally popular children's television program Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (shown in the United States as part of the PBS series Shining Time Station) makes its way onto the big screen in this feature-length adventure. On her way to see her Grandpa Burnett (Peter Fonda), young Lily (Mara Wilson) gets on the wrong train and ends up lost. Fortunately, she meets the tiny Mr. Conductor (Alec Baldwin), who shows her a magical railway where the plucky little steam engine Thomas
(voice of John Bellis) pulls the line from the enchanted town of Shining Time to the island of Sodor. Thomas' rival is the bigger (and meaner) Diesel Ten, who has already put one of Thomas' allied engines, The Lady, out of commission. Without The Lady, the Conductor has no source for the magic gold dust that allows him to travel from Sodor to Shining Time in the wink of an eye, so Lily and Thomas have to find a way to find more for him. Thomas and the Magic Railroad also features Didi Conn as Stacy Jones (reprising her role from Shining Time Station) and Russell Means as Billy Two Feathers. Like the TV series, Thomas and the Magic Railroad is loosely based on the Thomas the Tank Engine books written by British children's author Wilbert Vere Awdry. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Scenes with Peter Fonda as a melancholy grandfather -- he couldn't get a cherished engine running in time for his late wife to ride it -- periodically bring the movie screeching to a halt.
With clunky bluescreen, spot-a-mile-off matte work and an absolute lack of synergy between real-life and animated action, it all conspires to provide an appropriately amateur sheen.
...A strange, brooding story vastly different from its TV ancestor, and it will soon slip indistinctly from the public consciousness and into video stores, which is where it belongs.
It's not as bad as everyone says it is. I didn't like the americanisation of Thomas re-watching it as I adored the classic british home series when I was younger and had a lot of the episodes and this film on VHS. Also, the script was a bit cheesy but there were a lot of cute moments in this film and it had a real
heart that other modern live action/aniimated films didn't really have. It has good intentions and I think it suceeded in expressing them as I was touched when I was younger and i'm now touched after re-watching it again.
November 5, 2011
Michael Miller
Super Reviewer
This is one of those nostalgic movies that i grew up with and i still love it just as much as the old series
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