This movie totally houses the lame Thomas and the Magic Railway movie. This is what a Thomas movie should be. Fun, adventurous, creative, and with a hint of evil at the end...
My son and I love this movie. He is two and a half, I just about 40. From the first act where Sir Topham Hat introduces the "jobi" wood, you know that this movie is in the pocket. Hiro mentioning that jobi wood only grows on one or two locations in his now radioactively challenged island while a tear streams from his eye was genius. Then the not so subtle hint of racism as Diesel says that he wants to win the "Most Useful Engine" of the day contest and have the privilege of pushing the jobi wood to the construction site but Thomas says that Sir Topham Hat was really meant the most useful steam engine as diesels are noisy and dirty...
There are only two faults with this movie; Sir Topham Hat's terrible overacting (like he's on a soap opera) and Thomas mindlessly repeating the rhyme about how he makes good decisions. The res of the movie is brilliant.
Misty Island is great and the hillybilly inspired Logging Locos, Bash, Dash, and Ferdinand are funny and really interesting. Great characters who teach Thomas to let his hair down and not be so uptight and proper.
This movie has a great story, great characters, and great animation. The icing on the cake is at the end of the movie when all the trains are celebrating at the dock, the evil Diesel 10 rolls into frame looking down on the steamies from atop a mountain and vows his revenge. Sure it was probably just a teaser to get everyone interested in th upcoming Day of the Diesels movie but it was still an awesome touch.
I have to say that when Thomas moved from real models to CGI, I was disappointed but this movie shows you how good CGI can be. The trains and sets look like models and sometimes it is hard to tell, it is so well done. Bravo. Bravo.
