Thomas and the Magic Railroad

Thomas is not a little boy but a talking Tank Engine on the magical Island of Sodor. He and his mates -- Henry, James, Gordon, Percy, Toby, and many more -- criss-cross the island carrying milk, produce, lumber, and coal and trying most of all to be Really Useful Engines; overseeing them all, under the watchful eye of railroad magnate Sir Topham Hatt, is Mr. Conductor. Originating in an obscure series of British children's books written in the 1940s by the Reverend Wilber Awdry, Thomas the Tank Engine has gone on to star in a pair of internationally renowned TV series (one narrated by Ringo Starr). And now, inevitably, in his own movie.

I had an expert reviewer lined up, my six-year-old nephew -- but he's off in Italy visiting his station-master grandfather. Well, I figured that having read him the stories, watched innumerable TV shows and videos with him, and spent hours playing with his Thomas train set, I could handle the movie, though like the TV series (but not, as far as I can make out, the original books), it keeps jumping from Sodor to the human world of Shining Time Station -- the kind of imaginative leap that children handle better than adults. The trains all have British accents; Shining Time Station, on the other hand, seems to be located in a generic PBS kids' America.

The story starts out simple and gets confusing. (It didn't help that, because of screening problems, we didn't get to see the beginning, but none of the children in attendance batted an eyelash.) Thomas's world of magic and innocence is threatened by a nasty diesel engine named Diesel 10 and his sidekicks, Splatter and Dodge, who represent unwanted "progress." Their activity is causing Mr. Conductor (Alec Baldwin) to lose the "sparkle" that enables him to travel the "magic railroad" between Shining Time and Sodor. He calls on his surfer-dude cousin, Mr. C. Junior (Michael E. Rodgers), for help, but with Diesel 10 rampaging all over the island, our heroes are in danger of being trapped there. Meanwhile, back in the human world, Lily (Mara Wilson) has come from the big city to visit her recluse uncle Burnett Stone (Peter Fonda), who's secretly pining because he can't get his train, Lady, to start. Along the way, Lily meets an Indian named Billy Twofeathers (Russell Means), a boy her own age named Patch (Corey McMains), and a mutt named Mutt (not credited on the cast sheet), none of whom has much to do with the plot. In the end, Thomas proves Really Useful by saving Lady from Diesel 10, and the Magic Railroad -- a metaphor for the imagination, of course -- is re-established. If there's a sequel, Iet's have fewer human characters and more time for the trains. At the Holiday, Hoyts Providence Place 16, Showcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.
-- Jeffrey Gantz