ThomasNATION Movie Reviews - Thomas and the Magic Railroad
August 07, 2020
Who doesn't love Thomas The Tank Engine...having started off as a character in the Railway Series books by the Reverend W. Awdry and later his son Christopher, Thomas was then adapted into a television mini-series called 'Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends'-a show that I watched every day as a child and still do to this very day. This series was then imported to the United States and used as inspiration for the American children's show 'Shining Time Station'-another show that I watched every day as a child and one that I still hold close to my heart as an adult. At the height of Thomas' popularity in the 90's, Britt Allcroft-the creator of 'Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends' and the co-creator of 'Shining Time Station'-was given the task of turning these shows into a movie...the end result was 'Thomas And The Magic Railroad' and what was meant to be the highly anticipated cinematic debut of the little blue tank engine ended up going completely off the rails not only in its entire production history but also receiving harshly negative reviews from critics and audiences alike when the film was eventually released. So...what went wrong, what ended up causing confusion and delay for what could've been Thomas' biggest adventure yet? After twenty years, it's time to find out the truth...this is 'Thomas And The Magic Railroad'!
THOMAS AND THE MAGIC RAILROAD: Thomas The Tank Engine and his friends are being threatened by diesel engines like the surly Diesel 10 and his sidekicks Splatter and Dodge while the magical Mr. Conductor who has always traveled between the train world and the human world of Shining Time Station is losing his powers and sparkle. In the middle of this crisis, Lily meets up with Mr. Conductor on the way to visit her lonely grandfather Burnett Stone while brave Thomas reminds them all that "even little engines can do big things."
Now, the film is apparently very different to what writer/director Britt Allcroft originally intended...you see, her version included a villain called P.T. Boomer but test audiences said that the character was too scary for kids thus the studio panicked while cutting P.T. Boomer out and taking the movie in a different direction making what we have today one hell of a messy movie because P.T. Boomer's absence creates confusing plot-holes in the story which will more than likely leave audiences in a state of bewildered and uneasy confusion. The studio attempted to fill these holes in with narration by Alec Baldwin as Mr. Conductor of which I will credit them for doing so yet most of his explanations don't fit with what's happening on screen and you can tell that they've been half-heartedly inserted in at the last minute like when describing the events of Mutt traveling with Billy Twofeathers to the Big City Station in order to convince Lily to travel to Shining Time Station and meet up with Junior instead of to her grandfather Burnett Stone's place as originally planned.
Now, the director's cut of 'Thomas And The Magic Railroad' is currently unavailable to the public not counting the recent illegal uploading of the work-print version by the fandom that happened a few months ago: sure clips have been leaked online like the original version of the ending chase sequence and you can read the original script online yet there's no official copy of the director's cut of this movie unfortunately...so while reading this review, keep in mind that I am aware of the film's production backstory and that this is a butchering of the director's original vision yet I can't exactly fairly defend the director's cut without having seen it. At the end of the day, this is going to be a review of the theatrical cut only...we clear? Firstly, there's too many plot-holes and ideas for this film: you'd expect a movie for preschool children to be simple to follow yet this movie introduces so many running plot-lines from Mr. Conductor's fading magic and his shaky relationship with his lazy cousin Junior to Burnett Stone's grief over his deceased wife while struggling to get Lady working again to Lily having a hard time connecting with her grandfather while finding new friendship with local boy Patch to Thomas and his friends trying to stop Diesel 10 along with the secret of the Magic Railroad and local townspeople being worried about Burnett Stone.
It's all a bit too much since the film scrambles to connect all these things together too, sure the events happening are somewhat relevant to each other but there are striking differences between the plots in terms of tone and mood and aesthetic design: one moment, this film is a sad drama about a grieving grandfather and then suddenly we're watching Alec Baldwin playing children's television hosts as he whimsically breaks the fourth wall. It's kind of fascinating how badly these things mesh together because it creates this strange fever dream experience where we're watching drastically different movies bouncing between each other. What makes this film a slog to get through though is this very poor sense of pacing since a lot of the movie consists of the Sodor characters dumping out exposition about their world while discussing their many problems and taking a very long time to work out a plan while Burnett Stone spends most of the film alone in his workshop feeling sad and Lily does nothing of importance until she comes to Sodor thus making the first hour of the movie come off as padding because we're mainly playing the waiting game.
What about the actors, what did they bring to the film...well because the plots are all on different wavelengths, everyone seems to be doing their own things thus making it kind of surreal: we have the late Peter Fonda playing the film straight with a very nuance somber performance as Burnett Stone yet then there's Alec Baldwin who was narrating the United States dub of the 'Thomas & Friends' series at the time as Mr. Conductor trying so hard to be whimsical that he comes off as uncomfortably off the rails, he's just too intense for a friendly passive character...these jarringly opposing styles of acting draw attention to how these plots don't connect smoothly although I think the weakest link is Mara Wilson in her last ever film role as Lily. Mara has stated that she really enjoyed being in this movie yet it doesn't seem to show in her performance as her live deliveries are very bored and unenthusiastic thus making the whole grandfather-granddaughter plot ring hollow and empty.
Now, let's talk about the live-action animation itself...the one element that many people and especially the classic Thomas The Tank Engine fans remember the most about this movie. Well, the animatronic model trains are very limited in expression and movement not just because they're stuck to railway tracks but they also can't move their mouths yet what they can do is move their eyes around while driving down tracks and changing their faces between takes. This animation style is very unique and I also commend the filmmakers for staying true to the original visual style of the television series while praising the model-makers for working against their restrictions to show characters' emotions. While I can see how much work and love has gone into these model trains, I don't think they are effects that are worthy of a mainstream theatrical movie because they were originally designed for a simple series of five-minute television episodes.
Although the movie does do its best to compensate for this sometimes by filming the more intense scenes with a sense of cinematic presentation...but for the most part, the television budget effects are distractingly unfitting for a theatrical movie and I also don't blame some audiences for being creeped out by these trains because they can barely move yet we hear voices coming out of them while also sometimes freezing on some rather off-putting faces-ones that even made me a tad unsettled looking back on the film after so many years. Even as someone who has a nostalgic attachment to the 'Thomas & Friends' franchise, I'll admit that the trains do sometimes come off as a little haunting yet I'm just more forgiving about their creepy factor because they were part of my preschool childhood. If you think the steam engine models look endearing and charming, then all power to you but personally I can see why some audiences will be disturbed by them.
Granted it is a bad movie, but it's nowhere near terrible like everyone has made it out to be...'Thomas And The Magic Railroad' in its theatrical cut is a very messy movie: it's over-padded, totally confused and often quite incoherent...but yet the sets are kind of creative along with the live-action animation always being great to see considering what we have with Thomas The Tank Engine nowadays and even though it doesn't really work, you can tell that everyone involved on the cast and crew were at least trying to create something good because there was actual effort put onto it. I do believe that children between the age of two to five will really enjoy this film with its whimsical fantasy and talking trains...but once they get older, they'll realize that it doesn't make much sense as a film yet I do think it's fine to show to kids as it's pretty harmless and it teaches a nice message that you can believe in yourself despite your small size which is an encouragement that will definitely speak to little children but I just can't say that this movie in its theatrical cut is actually good. It's kind of like the recent 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' movie: it's not really good but could have been a hell of a lot worse especially considering the subject matter, so I have to give them credit for at least trying thus I'm gonna be nice considering my childhood nostalgia for Thomas The Tank Engine as well as the production trouble that surrounded this film and give 'Thomas And The Magic Railroad' a rating of an 4/5. I guess little engines really can do big things! Farewell and always remember: sparkle, sparkle, sparkle!
Final Score: 4/5
About the Author: True Blue
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