The story of the plucky train whose can-do spirit has been a staple of kindergarten America for over a century comes to DVD in an entirely new rendition awash in CGI and the obligatory star name voiceover artists.
While storybooks have told and retold the story over the years, with updates, tiny alterations and new illustrations along the way, perhaps the best known verison was written by Watty Piper and that’s the version which provided the basis for the 1991 cartoon version as well as this 2011 edition.
While there is no definitive version of the story it is easy to see how this new iteration came to be as the story is timeless and train that can talk exist in many forms in children’s entertainment. What separates this from the previous versions is that it’s a far longer tale than the 1991 half hour animated film and because it is rendered entirely in quick and easy CG there is a tendancy to make everything a little brighter, a little more busy and it doesn’t entirely work.
The message behind the film is ‘If I think, I can’ and the story of the little engine who takes children from the ‘real world’ back home despite overwhelming odds is present and correct and provides a nice inspirateional message in amongst the excitement.
Whoopi Goldberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and the marevellously named Alyson Stoner are the best known of the cast and the cast are engaging enough with Goldberg as the friendly Water Tower being fun, the songs are charming but in a slightly crazed way and in stretching the story out it quickly becomes apparent that there’s rather a lot of filler here. Also a note for parents – at the end there’s a Nightmare train which was a little too much for my boy and I’d have a quick look at the end of the film before sitting down with your kids for a viewing.
It’s a perfectly fine version of the story. It is however shameless in its influence. You may know the BBC series Chuggington? Well this is virtually identical to that in looks, in fact it’s as if the Chuggington trains are on a hour long sugar high and decide to put on a play. It’s nothing if not obvious and it is a little too long, perhaps a little scary but the rest of the time it’s an inoffensive story which will entertain in small doses. The only problem is that when it goes on the DVD shelf next to the Pixar films it might not come down again for a while.
[Rating:2.5/5]
