Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Thomas has always been my favourite children's show and this movie nailed it! The cast was beautifully scored and the way Thomas, Percy and the rest of the gang were portrayed greatly. the only problem I have is that James and Percy sound like women and Lady didn't get enough screentime.

Never in many a day have I ever seen a film so pitful, so awful, so gut bustingly bad, you would want to smash your TV up in anger and the sight of the dreadful thing.That thing is Thomas & The Ma *Coughcough*, sorry about that, I seem to have drank the wrong bottle of Cola. Ahh yes, Thomas & The Tragic Failroad.This should in no way under any circumstances be considered a film, instead it should be called a 90 minute patience test that would even make an avid fan of the franchise go bananas.Is there anything good though? Well yes there sort of is, Hummie Mann's score was good for the most part and I liked the voice acting. Some were good (like Neil Crone as Thomas), some were painfully miscast (Susan Roman as James).Still at least the voice actors put on better performances than any of the miserable, lifeless, so called human actors this film has to offer.These are not actors, these are dead lifeless vessels we're staring at.The one that really takes the cake is Peter Fonda, who is so awful in this film it's not even fun to watch.He looks and sounds so bored and his line delivery is so stilted, you'll be thinking he got drunk.How he didn't get a Razzie I'll never know? I know mate, those glory days of Easy Rider are way behind ya pal.Alec Baldwin's irritating as Mr Conductor and only Mara Wilson (in her sad final role) seems to be doing better but it's still not saying much.On the other hand, the villain Diesel 10 is crap, not menacing in the slightest, he's about as scary as a cute plush bear at a toy store. He and his useless comedy sidekicks are just here to be your typical clichéd Hollywood villains who laugh... a lot.Newcomer Lady is quite frankly dull as incredibly soggy dishwater, she's hardly in the film and when she does appear she STILL does nowt for most of her screen time! Talk about a useless pile of scrap if I've seen one.Plot's an old of cobbles too and the dialogue is so cringe worthy, it's not even funny. It's just depressing to listen to.It's so awful the train's mouths don't even move. It's like it's god damn ventriloquism! So crappy plot, useless villain, useless new character, lifeless performances all around (except for the voice cast) and ear bleedingly bad dialogue. Yep, another film to add in my bad books.I just love how everyone says that this should have gone straight-to-video.Nah guys, you're putting it way too mildly there. Straight-to-the nearest bin-where-it-should-never be seen again is a far more better option.No wonder Britt Allcroft buggered off after the film died at the box office.Now off to the scrapyard you go so I can never remember this film again.It's certainly caused a lot of *Snigger* confusion and delay.The Fat Controller certainly wouldn't approve. At least he ain't in it though.

When i was 6 i really enjoyed this movie because i couldn't understand what the heck the plot was. Now im 14, so i watched the movie and it brought back so many good memories but SO MANY flaws. WARNING MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS! 1. The trains voices are so high pitched and off. I actually saw in the credits that percy and james ARE VOICED BY GIRLS!!! How dare the producers do that to the characters! I prefer there original voice which was actually Micheal aglers the UK narrater of seasons 3 -16. I've heard his voice before and he would have been GREAT as percy and james. BUT THE PRODUCERS THOUGHT THEY SOUNDED TOO OLD!! Its not just james and percy its, thomas, gordon and so on. 2. THE DROPPED IDEA OFF PT BOOMER! Originally the main bad dude in the film. The movie was actually going to be about around 150 minutes LONG! The final cut was 86 minutes! They cut out so many parts and most of those parts where about pt boomer!! but they decided that pt boomer was too scary so they cut him..... WHAT IS SO SCARY ABOUT AN OLD GUY WHO CARRIES EXPLOSIVES AND BLOWS UP STUFF!!!! KIDS LOVE THAT STUFF!!! Even if its based off a child friendly show. 3. They show more parts of the humans than thomas and his friends. A better title would be SHINING TIME STATION the movie. George and cranky were too have parts but were cut for no reason. Cranky does appear briefly in the final cut and so does pt boomer. If these steps were inproved the movie would off been a hit!!!

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).