As Christmas cheer and New Year’s ambition winds down to the dull monotony of non-holiday filled months (don’t even mention the capitalism-riddled love fest that is sometimes called Valentine’s Day), we stop to reflect on the holiday season. And what encompasses the festivities more than a tradition as old as time: watching “The Polar Express”?

And yet, what makes “The Polar Express” so exponentially popular? It cannot be the shoddy animation, the grossly unlikable characters, or even the nightmare inducing Santa Clause. Perhaps it is the story, which is an ingenuitive telling of a couple of kids riding a train to the North Pole and facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. But the surrounding details are what makes this movie a never-ending torment.

For one, the only outstanding animation is spent on the grandeur of the actual train instead of the faces of the characters, making them seem dull and lifeless-a reflection of their personalities, really. Several of their names are withstanding of their traits: Know-It-All, Hero Boy, Hero Girl; all names lacking the tether that connects the audience members to the characters and their stories.

Plus the creepy, creaky feeling of not only the surroundings but the mood itself is enough to send any child cowering in fear. I remember dreading watching this movie at my grandma’s house because of the ghost and the wolves in the movie.

The ending is also atrocious; they spend so much time getting to their final destination and spend barely any time in the North Pole!

Holly Haney, 12, agrees that the ending always left her with “feelings like something big was supposed to happen, but never did.”

“The Polar Express” is not at all what you hope it to be and rather it’s 1 hour, 40 minutes of agonizing torture leading up to a disappointing ending.