Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000) ⭐ 4.3 | Adventure, Comedy, Family (original) (raw)
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My son loves this movie. We rented the DVD and then he saved his own money to buy it. He still loves it 2 years later. Although It is a little bland for adults. Kids eat it up. That is really all I have to say. but they require that this comment be 10 lines long. My point is that all of the comments I read were really negative about the movie. When in fact it served it's primary objective. And the at was to entertain children. I don't think that anyone made the film wanting to get nominated for any awards. They just wanted to entertain children and make some dough in the process. The end. I have met the 10 line minimum. I give it 3 out of 10 stars.
My wife and I took our 3 year old to see this film and we all enjoyed it. In the age of lots of shoot 'em up and Pokemon "crap" Thomas was refreshing and light. For all those who have slammed this film as being the worst of 2000 I can only imagine that they have no sense of wonder and either don't have kids or don't read to their kids. Take your little ones, leave your synicism at the door and be a kid again. Its o.k. to enjoy a kids film!! :)
Bland little film that forgets to include the most important element of a kids film - fun
With evil engine Diesel back on the track and looking to get rid of the old steam engines. Mr Conductor is put in charge of using his gold dust to jump around the area and keep an eye on Diesel - but his supply runs out and he finds himself stuck. Meanwhile Diesel is looking for the steam engine that got away from him in the past - the same engine that was repaired and hidden by Grandpa Burnett many years ago.
Being a reasonable fan of Thomas in my youth I decided to watch this film to see what it was like. The first problem of the film is that it doesn't resemble the UK version, with characters and sentiments added for the American audience. This isn't a major problem - only that it affects what I remember from the original series. The plot is very fragmented and is far too hard for very young children to follow; the basic is good but the addition of various characters and such just complicates things. The issue I had with the story was the fact that it is almost totally lacking in any sense of fun or wonder; I don't mean it should have been hilarious but it should have been at least enjoyable. Instead, there is no sense of fun here - it is very plodding and makes it nigh on impossible to stay with.
The animation is basic but is more or less true to the original series; downside of that is that the trains all look rubbish - with the eyes being the only bits that move (constantly). However the film straw is the fact that the cast are pretty poor. The voice work on the trains is very simplistic and it just made all of them sound the same. Peter Fonda is awful and can't even muster the energy to deliver the most basic of lines (when his granddaughter returns he says `Oh Lily. I'm so glad you're back' with all the emotion of a man reading out his shopping list). It's like he got drunk and woke up to find himself contractually obliged to do this film and decided to not even put in a little bit of effort. Baldwin tries hard and is actually OK because he is at least putting in effort; more than that, considering his tough guy image, this was a strange role for him to play and he does do it pretty well although I would have liked his character to insert more of the wonder and fun that he hints at rather than delivers.
Overall this is a pretty poor film that never really goes anywhere. The plot is weak - too complex for tots and too convoluted for adults to bother with. The acting is roundly poor and the film manages to be totally missing any sense of fun. It's easy to tire of kids films that are full of knowing humour but this is one film that was crying out for a bit of silliness or tongue in cheek humour.
It's not a cinematic master piece - but it's still an enjoyable movie
I was quite surprised to see such negative reviews...it was by no means a cinematic master piece but it never suppose to be. It was only ever meant to be a fun movie for little kids about their favourite engine, which is what it is. When it came out in 2000, my sister was 3 and I was 5, we loved it, we even had it on VHS.
Yeah it has some minor plot holes, it was still a nice fun story...as previously stated, it's for kids, so definitely wouldn't want to complicate the plot too much.
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By what name was Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000) officially released in India in English?