The Polar Express (G)
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This came out in 2004, but I didn't see it until 2023. It's based on a 1985 children's book of the same name, which I haven't read. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, and uses motion capture to create computer animation of the human characters, while I guess the train and backgrounds and maybe the elves and whatnot were normal CGI. I actually liked the animation more than I expected to, for the most part, though I liked the look of the mo-cap characters a bit less than the rest of the film. Still not bad, though. I liked the look of the humans more than I expected to, but not as much as normal CGI.

Anyway, there's an unnamed boy who has started doubting that Santa Claus is real. (He's credited as "Hero Boy".) The movie starts and ends with some narration by that character as an adult looking back on the story told by the film. (As an adult he's voiced by Tom Hanks, who also does the voices of several other characters.) On Christmas Eve, the boy hears a train come to a stop outside his house (where there should be no tracks, I suppose), and he goes out to investigate. The conductor (Hanks) invites him onboard, and while the boy hesitates at first, he changes his mind pretty quickly. It's called the Polar Express, and its destination is the North Pole. There are already a number of other children on the train, most of whom are of no importance to the plot. The most important one is an unnamed girl ("Hero Girl", voiced by Nona Gaye), who befriends Hero Boy. There's also an annoying boy of a bit less importance, referred to as "Know-it-all" (voiced by Eddie Deezen, who immediately sounded familiar to me, but it took me awhile to conclude I knew him as the voice of Mandark on Dexter's Laboratory). At the next stop after the train picked up Hero Boy, there's a lonely boy named Billy who fails to board the train before it departs again, so Hero Boy pulls the emergency brake to let him get aboard. For much of the film, Billy keeps to himself in a different car than the rest of the children, but he is eventually befriended by Hero Boy and Hero Girl. The two of them, and later Billy as well, have some adventures during the course of the trip to the North Pole, as well as after they arrive there. And I guess I don't want to detail any of those adventures. But Hero Boy eventually receives a present from Santa Claus (Hanks), and later all the children re-board the train to return to their homes.

Well, I definitely liked the movie more than I expected to. The main characters were likeable, the story was suitably magical and surreal, the animation was good, and yeah... there's nothing not to like about it, IMO. But I did feel like I liked it somewhat less than I should have, and I have no idea why. Maybe I'm just too jaded, or something. I normally am quite capable of thoroughly enjoying movies whose target audience is children, as this one seems to be, but maybe something about this movie is just too much "for children" for me to like it as much as I wish I could. (Like, I definitely wouldn't hear Hero Boy's bell, which is only audible to people who still believe in Santa.) But then, that's not just because I'm an adult, because Hero Boy the narrator can still hear it as an adult. (But after his experience, I suppose it would be impossible not to believe.) Anyway... I'm glad I finally saw the movie.