SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Thomas Stansfield That infamous rebuttal 'It's a kids film' is definitely one of the lamest and weak rebuttals I've ever heard in my life. Just because it's a movie focused to children doesn't mean it's good or have some effort in towards it. This movie is ridiculous and has serious plot hole. You have Lady, a magical engine that provides magic on the railroad that powers up the universe between Shining Time and Sodor and if the RR has no power it will vanish for good. Yet in the movie, Shining Time is being all empty, quiet and rotting away because of no magic, in Mr. Conductor's dream and in one part of the movie, yet Sodor is all fine and dandy wouldn't the Island of Sodor be in peril too? This film has many unexplained plots, why is there another portal to the MRR? In 1999 draft script of the movie, yes there's a Director's cut, the MRR is a railway system, but why keep the portal scene in the final product? The whole magic concept is ridiculous and stupid when it comes to the world of Thomas the Tank Engine. The show, when it was first seen 30 years ago on British TV, were based on a series of books made by the Rev.W.Awdry called 'The Railway Series', the books shows us the engines of Sodor working on the railway with real railway practice. When this movie came out, the books were ignored and the stories from the TV series were written by other writers, this was after the passing of the author. Britt Allcroft, the former producer of the series, thinks the characters in a magical point of view and while I do respect her, this would be her awful decision. The movie ignored the British roots of the series and it made Sodor more universal rather then a fictional island being part of the real world. Lady is a terrible character, she has no personality and had four pointless lines, in the DC she was to interact with Thomas in a telepathy way. Diesel 10, Splatter and Dodge are your typical Hollywood characters, Diesel 10 the crazy villain and Splatter and Dodge the dumb sidekick characters. The voice actors for the engines, no offense towards American and Canadians, were bad as it gives the tag 'Americanisation' towards Thomas the Tank Engine, even American and Canadian purists of Thomas hate this movie too, most of them are Canadians and Americans impersonating the British accent with Britt Allcroft being the voice of Lady as the only British VA. The DC was to have some British and one Australian VA but was kicked out of it because an L.A test audience think they sound either too old or scary. The human characters are OK Alec Baldwin and Mara Wilson were good but Peter Fonda just over acts depressed, even though many kids films do have sad scenes but Fonda's more depressive. But hey it's a kids film we shouldn't criticise it right? right? OF COURSE NOT! The CGI Thomas specials (KOTR and TOTB) are far more better then this film.

sue-brake this film is now 12 years old and was a excellence to the railway it marked the end of the series as now they are remakes of the old but what i have to say is the violence used in this film such as diesel 10 who has a claw and try's to destroy Thomas and lady voiced by Eddie Glenn and Britt all croft and nil crone my family adores this wonderful film my favourite trains are splatter and dodge for there silliness in this film making your family love it as well i'm sad to say that Alec Baldwin failed in this wonderful film.the most best part of the film is at the end when lady and Thomas are being chased by diesel 10. during this wonderful film funny scenes are involved with spatter and dodge like how to stop being stupid but sadly we probably will never see them again because on Thomas wiki it says no one knows what happened to them this movie is a must see

John Jones This film was seriously one of my favourite films as a child. I'm extremely tempted to torrent it just for the nostalgia value. It's legendary. Better than any Thomas the Tank film before or since. It's Thomas the mother-flipping Tank, people. If you're reading this review, stop reading it and go and watch this film. As for the rest of this review, I just need to enter another 5 or so lines of text, so I might as well write about my day. I woke up, watched Tintin (the original cartoon, not the film), had a bath, and right about now I'm watching Miracle on 34th Street and needing something to eat. And I still need another line? Well, okay. I think that's about right.

peter1-8 Having a movie's page on Wikipedia up whilst watching it so that you can keep up with an excessively-convoluted plot is something that I and many other people had to do with 'Inception' and 'Primer', but I have to say that I never expected to have to do that while watching a movie based on 'Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends', aimed at preschoolers.To the best of my understanding; the film takes place across two parallel universes, the first being that inhabited by the anthropomorphic trains such as Thomas, and the second being the real world inhabited by, well, by us; by humans. Within Thomas' universe, the fat controller Sir Topham Hat has gone on vacation, leaving the Conductor in charge. In order to teleport between Thomas' universe and the real universe, the Conductor needs a supply of gold dust, and it's running out. If it was ever explained for what reason the Conductor needed to teleport between the two worlds, I'm afraid I missed it. Oh and for some strange reason, whenever he teleports to the real world, he appears as only about a foot tall. But I digress. Apparently there's another way to travel between the two worlds in the form of the eponymous magic railroad. Alas, the only train capable of traveling on it, named Lady, broke down years ago, and is kept in a cave in mountain where a melancholy old grandpa tends to it. In the meantime, a gang of evil diesel trains shows up in Thomas' world and starts scheming to destroy the steam trains. Their scheme involves making sure the Conductor's gold dust runs out, or finding the magic railroad, or... something.Does any of this make any sense to you? Because it didn't to me. Things become even more confusing and bizarre. There's something to do with a clue that will lead to a windmill. And something to do with magic buffers that lead to the railroad. And these two flowers on the ends of vines that, I swear to god, are used by the Conductor as a telephone for contacting the fat controller.How, anyone may ask, did a children's film end up as such an impenetrable, mixed-up mind-boggler? As I scrolled down on the aforementioned Wikipedia article, an answer was yielded. For one thing, the movie is actually not solely a Thomas the Tank Engine movie but a crossover between 'Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends' and an American TV series called 'Shining Time Station'. That, at least, should answer a few of the questions that British and Australian audiences might have. For another thing, rewrites. Apparently, this movie went through quite a troubled production. Originally running for an unbelievable 146 minutes, changes were made left and right that ranged from entire scenes and characters being cut to lines being re-dubbed on the patently absurd grounds that the original accents were "too offensive" or "too scary." Well, that's all there is to it. A potentially passable, innocent film ruined by behind-the-scenes nitpicking. Anyone who knows anything about movies knows how messing around too much with a script can eventually render the film in question incoherent. Just look at what happened with the 'The Stepford Wives' remake, and with 'Caligula'. (Dang, if there's one thing I never expected to do, it's mention 'Caligula' in a review of something pertaining to Thomas the Tank Engine).