GamerTab That was an excellent one.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

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).

tez_mike HiYes most of you are correct, the story is cheesy, without much substance and not much like the English cartoon - However - this is a kids film! My little boy is actually sat there now in awe of it, most of the kids this film is aimed at probably don't really understand the plot anyway all they see are trains, little people and gold dust!So what if a lot of the engines have an American accent, I'm sure children don't really care - I don't!What a great cast, Alec Baldwin, Frenchie from Grease and the girl from Matilda, I'm sure thats enough for the adults and if its not, go on your laptop/do some cleaning while your little one sits down peacefully (which hardly ever happens) and watches this film in wonder.Great film for kids under 8.Tez

kylehaines96 Director Britt Allcroft give Thomas The Tank Engine his big screen debut with Thomas And The Magic Railroad. The film is about Mr. Conductor played by Alec Baldwin is losing his supply of magic gold dust. He needs to get more gold Dust from an engine named Lady who supplies gold dust but due to a mean engine named Deisel 10 destroying her that is not possible. She is under repair from Burnett Stone played by Peter Fonda and his granddaughter Lily played by Mara Wilson. The film is just excellent the cast is great and heartwarming. A lot of people disliked this but they have to understand that when it went to test audiences they had to make so many cuts and rewrites because the test audience deemed the movie either too frightening, too long or too americanised and if you don't believe me go to wikipedia and look at the very long list of cuts and rewrites. And also I am sick and tired of people say the film was so American just shut up and enjoy it for what it is.Rated G.1hr 24min/84min.****/****

Writer_Commentary Well, a Thomas movie has been made with a great cast and the version that we have was good, but could it have been better? The answer is yes. But it is still good the way it is. There is a nice plot that has everything one would want in a Thomas movie or any kids movie for that matter. What I don't like is how a good portion of the film is unreleased and may never be seen. But until I see the final cut, I think that one that we have now is good. It has the hero's quest, a determined bad guy, and things you can relate to. I liked it because it was a good interpretation of the character from the Thomas franchise and has an understandable plot. While I do hope for the full version of the movie, what we have now is good.