Customer Reviews

Thomas and the Magic Railroad [VHS]

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(49)

 

 

Our 3yr old boy loves Thomas. We have all the videos and trains, etc. He wants to watch this thing every day. He repeats lines from the movie and acts them out all day. It was great for him. We took him to the movies to see it together. He loved that, too. For him, we would do it all again in a minute.

As parents, we could have done without the "mean-ness" of Diesel #10 and the fact that he wants to "dominate and destroy". He also uses the word "stupid" several times. Not nice.

As adult movie critics, we saw laughably poor acting (with the exception of "Mr. Conductor" and "Junior". (Notice that even some of the 5-star reviewers agree.) Britt Alcroft directed and wrote it, and it is obvious that she should have asked for help from someone who knew what they were doing. If you pay attention, expect to be confused. We expected more because we actually enjoy watching all of the other videos, and they are really well done.

This movie was by far the worst Thomas production ever made. I was horrified when I discovered that Britt Allcroft wrote it; now we know why she always had a co-writer when she was writing episodes for the TV series, and why she was kicked out of Gullane Entertainment afterwards.

The script is so poorly written that I feel sorry for the trees used to make the paper that it was written on. The Island of Sodor, in the TV series an island off the coast of England that was more or less normal, has been turned into a magical ghost town populated by talking trains and literate animals. Why Britt Allcroft chose to make such a rapid departure from the TV series I will never know. She also filled the script with complicated plot devices that few children will be able to understand (you'd need to be Einstein or Stephen Hawking to figure out the answer to the riddle on the windmill wall), and threw her healthy knowledge of the Thomas characters out of the window (Thomas is portrayed as a goody-goody, Bertie as being annoyingly hyperactive, Henry as being a whiny pain in the neck, and James as being so short of brain cells that he doesn't know what the word "shoo" means).

Usually, bad scripts bring in bad acting, and this movie was no exception. Alec Baldwin's character was so annoying (I'm sure I'm not the only person who wishes Diesel 10 had dropped him off the viaduct), and took the limelight that should have been given to Thomas and the other engines. Peter Fonda's character was the most miserable, depressing character in the history of children's movies. Mara Wilson's character was better, but still seemed like a teenage girl younger than her years. And what was the point of having big name actors anyway? It's not as if little children are going to recognise them.

I also find the film to be overly violent. Diesel 10 is so nasty that it's no wonder little children started crying and asking to leave the theater when he made his first appearance. We're never told why he's evil either, he just comes off as a character who wants to destroy steam engines for no reason whatsoever. In the original series, if a character was evil it was usually for a good reason. In a similar fashion, while characters in the TV series might be evil, they never went further than playing tricks on the other engines and trying to get them sent away. Here, Diesel 10 tries to kill Mr Conductor and Junior in scenes that make me amazed the film got a G rating.

Then there's the fact that the steam engines get what can only be described as outstanding cameos. When I went to see this at the theater, I noticed a lot of little children fidgeting and looking bored during the scenes with the human characters. Really I'm not at all surprised that they were; they came to the theater to see their favorite blue engine and his friends, not a Lilliputian railroad conductor who had lost his gold dust.

Last but not least, what can little children learn from this movie? The TV series episodes all have morals in them, like "don't tell lies" and "don't get too full of yourself." Other than a brief line at the end about helping each other, this movie has no moral value in it whatsoever (unless you count teaching children to be senselessly violent a moral).

In September of this year a second Thomas movie is coming out, albeit shorter than this one and being released direct to video, called "Calling All Engines." Cross your fingers and hope it's better than this turkey.

For some reason I can't fathom my daughters love this movie, but sitting through it is painful. The little boy in the movie should consider another career, and Peter Fonda is more wooden than the trains (although if you're in the right mood his performance is almost funny, but mostly it's just painful). Alex Baldwin tried, but the script and the direction kept this movie from being anything more than dismal. The Thomas series is much more entertaining and well-written. Do yourself a favor and don't spend money on this dog.

How they got Alec Baldwin to do this movie is beyond me. From the terrible, overly complicated, disjointed script to the high school film class direction to the wooden acting this is a dog from start to finish. That said, my three year old loves it. No accounting for the tastes of a toddler.

Peter Fonda appears heavily sedated throughout the film. The character Junior (who for no apparent reason seems to be an Aussie surfer dude) is energetic but lost to the pathetic script and direction. Alec Baldwin plays the conductor with a wide eyed exuberence that nearly rivals Barney the purple dinosaur for sheer annoyance.

I actually enjoy many of my three year old's favorite films (Monsters, Inc., The Wizard of Oz, Stuart Little) but this film is unbareable from start to finish.

I was so excited to get this movie for my brother who loves Thomas and knows everything a three year old can know about trains. I only wish I had read a couple of reviews first. I almost did not buy it just because Alec Baldwin was in it and after seeing this movie, I'll never waste another dime on anything he is in.
So why is this movie so bad? Let's start with the story. It has more to do with Mr. Conductor (a stupid name) than it has to do with Thomas and his friends. The dialogue is horrible. When it does show an engine from the Island of Sodor, it bears no resemblence to the engines in the beloved books. For instance, James comes across as an idiot. Thomas is nearly absent for most of the movie. The voices of the engines sound like little kids, which is silly. On the other hand the character played by Mara Wilson should have been played by a little kid. She is very unconvincing in this role and the boy, Patch is even worse. Some characters seem to be there for no reason at all, like Mr. Conductor's cousin. But that is the way the entire movie goes, things just happen for no reason, leaving the viewer with a bunch of annoying questions: Why is Diesel 10 so angry and mean? Why does Mr. conductor go from the "real" world to the Island of Sodor? Why would Sir Topham Hatt trust this simpleton to run his railroad? Why was Peter Fonda's character able to get to Sodor in the first place? Why was this movie ever made? Why did nobody check in with the original stories to see if any of this made sense? Why was Britt Allcroft allowed to do this kind of damage to Thomas the Tank Engine? Why am I so angry about this? Did they show this movie to a test audience? If so how did it ever make it to theaters?
In short, this is THE WORST movie I have ever seen from the screenplay to the acting to the editing. It has not one redeeming quality.

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke...why anyone felt the need to mix and match live action with the Sodor characters is anyone's guess, but the way it was handled here makes me wonder if the film was put together by five different people who mailed in their ideas which were then assembled by a committee. My daughter, who worships the short videos, was soon fiddling with a case of milk instead of watching the story, while I was nearly reduced to making a flow chart to try and figure out what the heck was happening and why. And I'm not really ready to accept Peter Fonda as "grandpa" - especially this Fonda who spent most of the time looking like he had Post-Traumatic-Stress disorder or was having trouble remembering his lines or perhaps where he had put the keys to the car. Alex Baldwin seemed to connect better to the story simply because he's narrated them before. But the rest is an unholy mess. Plus, Mr. Diesel seemed unnecessarily cruel and almost spiteful with a hyena-like laugh. Such typically cruel meanness is a normal facet of badly made American cartoons but it was never a part of the original U.K. series. Ugh all the way around.

I purchased this DVD through Amazon.com in preparation for a trip I recently took with my 2 1/2 year old. He loves Thomas and I thought he'd like this video. I had read that purist Thomas fans didn't care for it, but since we don't have any of the regular videos, I figured it would be okay. What I didn't realize is that there are relatively few scenes of the trains in this video, and my son found the extended dialog between the "real" people to be completely uninteresting. He would actually walk away from the TV, he was so bored.

As an adult, I found the plot to be overly complicated with too many sub elements. The boy and girl characters appear to have been shoe-horned in for a little human interest, but are tedious to watch. Alec Baldwin provides a perfomance that is so bad, I couldn't look at the screen. Peter Fonda didn't do so well either.

This video may entertain an older child, but I highly suggest renting it or checkign it out from the library before purchasing it.

My son was very excited at the prospect of this film when it came out in theatres. He was about five years old and had to be carried screaming from the theatre when the evil diesel made its appearance. I am sorry to say that in typical boy fashion, he recently decided he had to prove he was not afraid of Diesel and asked me to get this for him. I did, and now I feel like I should be carried screaming from the room.

The plot, such as it is, is incoherent and completely contrary to the purpose of the original Thomas stories, which were all about hard work, determination, teamwork and honesty. Very bland unmagical Anglo-Saxon qualities, but good ones to have and good ones to teach to your children. This movie, on the other hand, seems to have nothing to do with those corny virtues and everything to do with the Conductor's quest for some sort of magic gold dust.

The acting is leaden, but I don't know that the actors themselves are to blame. I'm sure they were all expecting a better script. Honestly this film seems to have more in common with The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" than it does with any of the previous Thomas stories. It's sloppy, disjointed, with all sorts of weird hallucinogenic touches, like the conductor talking into a phone made of flowers.

The story also seems to make my son very hyper (something the original Thomas stories never did) -- he even seems to have more trouble sleeping if he watches it. I'm sorry I let him have it, plan to "lose" it as soon as possible, and only wish he still had the good taste he had when he was five and hated the thing!!!

I was appalled at how horrible this movie was! My daughter loves Thomas (and so do I) and she has all the videos of the series. We were really looking forward to the release of this movie in the theater. WHAT A LET DOWN!! This movie seemed like it was written as they shot it, (suddenly they need a well, and by gosh there it IS! Funny how it wasn't there in previous shots!) and Peter Fonda goes through this movie as if he's embarrassed to be seen in it (and with good reason!) You get the impression that he was hoping his costume called for a paper bag to put over his head! This movie was a real stinker! BLAH!

It seems that many of the reviews here are out-of-context, because the reviewers may not be familiar with the "Shining Time Station" series. Shining Time Station is the program which introduced Thomas and his friends to many folks. But after STS left PBS for Nickelodian, PBS was left with just Thomas.

In Shining Time Station, the role of Mr Conductor is fairly important. He is constantly interacting with folks like Stacey Jones (who is in this movie for a few scenes), Billy Two-Feathers (also in the movie and drives the 'real' train), and the infamous Schemer (notably absent). He is also the central figure for telling the children who hang around the station about Thomas and the Land of Sodor. Depending on season, Mr C was played by either Ringo Starr or George Carlin. It is supposed to be a somewhat responsible - yet somewhat wacky - role, as is everything about Shining Time Station. Alec Balwin clearly studied this role closely based on his predecessors, and I thought did an outstanding job.

OTOH, words can not describe how dreadful Peter Fondas performance was. He seemed to be completely lost in every scene he was in. He seemed to have no concept of Shining Time Station at all. It dragged down the entire movie.

As has been noted in other reviews, small kids won't be able to figure out the plot. By the time kids start figuring it out (say, age 9) they are starting to get too old for some of the movie.

The musical interludes are wonderful. Check out some of the samples from the Amazon page for the Sound Tracks CD. (And yes, Locomotion did appear in the movie - during the credits.)

To a rail buff, such as myself, there were some wonderful shots of the steam train taking Lily (Mara Wilson) to Shining Time Station. FWIW, engine #475 - prominently photographed in the movie - belongs to the Strasburg Railroad in Strasburg, Pa. If you have a good sound system, #475s 'CHUG' and whistle send chills up ones spine.

There were a few railroading problems too. Like how did the coal car that got lost through the buffer end up on a different set of tracks than Thomas was on? Or how did Thomas get turned around after he fell off the cliff? How did Patch manage to bring hundreds of lbs of coal back - on his horse - to fire up Lady? Or during the chase scene with Lady, how did Diesel suddenly switch from the left tracks to the right tracks? Kids won't notice any of that of course.

So in summary, if your kids have seen the Shining Time Station series, it will make some sense to them and why the characters are as they are. If they know about Thomas but have not seen STS, the Mr Conductor (and Stacey Jones and Billy Two-Feathers) characters will be new and a bit, er, different. If they've never seen either one, the movie probably will have a hard time standing on its own - at least for the first couple of viewings.