FOR those of you who have forgotten the true magic of Christmas, fear not.

Polar Express will bring back that jingling joy and can't-get-to-sleep anticipation we all once felt on Christmas Eve.

A doubting boy is taken to the North Pole on the night before Christmas by an astonishing steam train and its conductor, voiced by Tom Hanks, seeing elves, reindeer and Santa himself, as well as making a whole host of friends along the way.

Polar Express is not a movie in the ordinary sense, nor an animation, but endeavours to be a storybook come to life with illustrated figures that are strangely lifelike.

The film sweeps you away in a literal rollercoaster. Amazingly made and technically superb, you will be carried across the vast scenes with as much adrenalin as the characters themselves, as the Polar Express crashes towards the North Pole. And all this is accompanied by toe-tapping musical mayhem and some of our favourite festive tunes.

The storyline remains uncomplicated and Robert Zemeckis has directed a true Christmas cracker with a timeless tale of seasonal spirit.

Some may find it just another version of so many stories of restoring the magic to Christmas, but for the child in all of us, Polar Express is guaranteed to remind us what it's all about.

You'll be putting out your mince pie for Santa before you know it.

ECB