A young boy waits breathlessly in a darkened room, ears straining under the covers for the first tinkling sounds of Santa’s sleigh bells. The radiator sizzles and steams, the hall stairs creak and the snow gently falls to the ground, but no sleigh bells; no Santa. Is this how young dreams die? How illusions of wonderment and childhood innocence dissolve into a grown-up view of the world as a literal playground where the fantastical does not – cannot – exist?

Suddenly, and to the boy’s amazement, a giant locomotive engine parks itself right in front of his home. With light peering through the windows and the screeching sounds of pistons and cranks the youngster is aghast when it appears no one but him can hear or see the commotion. The same goes when he creeps silently outside to inspect the train and, as wonder and imagination start to deepen their hold, a dapper, mustachioed conductor announce, “All aboard!”

“To where?” asks the guarded and curious young boy.

“Why the North Pole, of course!”

And so begins The Polar Express, director Robert Zemeckis’ intriguing and technologically adventurous adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s Caldecott-winning children’s story. This is as a simple, almost wistful tale, one full of childish delights and dreams that often unfortunately fade with the onset of adulthood. What the book does so deliriously, and what the movie only hints at, is that time-honored belief that, as a child, anything is possible and magical characters like Santa Claus and the emotions they represent will last forever. Told through gorgeously rendered paintings done by the author, the book is a family favorite, going so far beyond the superficial aspects of Christmas and hitting with precision the true meaning of a holiday so rapturously in tune with the glories of community and family.

If only the movie could do the same. While I’m a sucker for Christmas movies, and this one definitely has its moments pulling the heartstrings, Zemeckis has become so beholden to technology he forgets to infuse his story with the heart necessary to allow our spirits to really soar. Focusing on three small children; each with a trait buried within themselves, each too self-conscious or scared to let it out; I kept waiting for that rapturous moment where everything would come together and the pure emotions of the holiday would spring forth unto the screen. It never happened, The Polar Express moving in fits and starts and never fully capturing the imagination.

Part of the problem is that much-hyped technology. Zemeckis and company use a new procedure dubbed ‘performance capture’ to render their picture, transforming the performances of Tom Hanks (in five different roles) and others into digital computer animated creations. Sometimes it works; the set design, costumes and movements of the human characters are simply astonishing, light years beyond anything we’ve seen before. Many times it doesn’t; character’s faces are ungainly and distorted, they have a difficult time expressing emotion and action sequences of the human actors in a colorful forced-perspective are jarring. Just as the story or the emotions started to pull me in, suddenly one or another technical facet would pull me right out and strain my already incredulous sentiments.

But when The Polar Express works, it works splendidly. There is a sequence concerning a lost ticket that’s beyond spellbinding. We soar with eagles, run with wolves, blow with the wind and sweep and swirl up around palatial waterfalls. It is a stirring, almost life-affirming moment full of just the right amounts of movie magic a surreal emotionalism we’ve come to expect from the director of Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forest Gump. The first sights of the North Pole are also astounding, the movie setting a new benchmark for computer animated wizardry even eclipsing anything to be seen in the otherwise far superior The Incredibles.

And, while I was no near completely captivated by The Polar Express (the thousands of mutant elves populating the North Pole are just downright creepy), it’s hard to quibble with the message at its core. By using a single, shimmering crystal bell from Santa’s sleigh, Zemeckis almost won me over; making me long once again for a childhood spent blissfully sleeping on the living room couch curled in front of the Christmas Tree. It is that childhood innocence, that emotional stirring of imagination and belief that helps shape the people we become and for one brief, shimmering moment The Polar Express gets it right, and that’s a gift worth unwrapping.