Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie makes Misty island rescue passable. While I have a soft spot for the blue tank engine, looking back on it this movie was kinda boring. It's good background noise but as a movie it's just really underwhelming.

Thomas And The Magic Railroad was one of my childhood favorites. I was a huge fan of Thomas The Tank Engine back in the day. I owned a bunch of the videos and toys. I remember one day thirteen years ago my Mom brought home this movie from the library and I was instantly intrigued by real humans on the cover with Thomas. I watched it and I loved it. Later on, I got it for Christmas and I've watched it countless times since. My family may have suffered a bit. Now that I'm older I can understand that it's not a very good movie, but there is definitely some good things about it. The scenes with the engines are magical, the soundtrack is great, the set designs for Sodor are really well done. This movie definitely has flaws though. It's way too Americanized, the acting is not the best, the voice acting is okay but nobody seems to own their role, but the two biggest crimes this movie commits are the film focuses way too much on the humans and not the engines and they left one of the most important characters Edward out of the movie. I want to see humans in this movie, but the amount of screen time given to them and the amount of screen time given to the engines should be reversed. And making a Thomas The Tank Engine movie without Edward is wrong! Edward was an important character and he should have been included in this movie! Not including him is like making an Arthur movie without Buster Baxter, or a Muppet movie without Fozzie Bear, or a Sesame Street movie without Oscar the Grouch. My point is it doesn't work and there's no excuse for not including him. Speaking of not including, this movie only includes the main engines from the show (save for Edward of course) plus Bertie, the four new engines, and two background characters. Come on, this is a Thomas The Tank Engine movie! Throw in, Duck, Oliver, Toad, Donald and Douglas, Diesel, and the Little Engines! Stop focusing so much on the humans and make the engines your main focus! One complaint this movie gets that I don't agree with at all is that the engines mouths don't move. Who cares!? Their mouths didn't move on the tv show! They did eventually but that was when the show became CGI animated and sucked. In regards to the acting performances, Alec Baldwin is over the top as Mr. Conducter. He plays his character like Mr. Rogers, Willy Wonka, and Nicolas Cage all in one person. It's not very good but he's at least entertaining. I do feel like the role could have benefited from being played by Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, or Will Ferrell. Peter Fonda's performance is nothing like Baldwin's. Peter Fonda is playing his role like he's in some sort of depressing Oscar winning drama. It's not bad, but this is Thomas The Tank Engine not Titanic. Mara Wilson is cute in this movie but at this point she wasn't the freaking adorable little girl she was in Mrs. Doubtfire. If this movie could have stayed true to it's British origins and waited several years to be made they could have cast Georgie Henley from Narnia in the role of Lily. That would have been better! People talk about how the movie would have been so much better if they didn't cut out the main villain. Sure it would have been better but I still don't think it would be an acclaimed masterpiece. Despite this movie's flaws I don't hate it. I don't think it's good but I loved it as a child and it still has a special place in my heart. I wouldn't mind collecting it on VHS and watching it occasionally. This movie gets 2.5 stars and a C+. If I wasn't a Thomas The Tank Engine fan it would most likely get a lower rating and if this was 13 years ago I would rank this up there with Forrest Gump.

woooohooo awesome movie why is this movie low rated just because the adults don't like it the kids did and im 12 in year 7 so i love this movie i love the chase scene but heres something the movie was ruined by Americans!!!! it was meant to have George and diesel 10 and all the other characters splatter and dodge were meant to be destroyed the movie was due to be 146 minutes long with Pete Theodore boomer aka p.t boomer and the chase was the best and was meant to have Thomas derailing on the jump and diesel 10 grabbing him and finally killing him then of course we have James about to be scrapped scene and all sorts oh man it was awesome

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).