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On track for toddler vote
From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Friday 4th Aug 2000.
IT'S all really rather surreal. Alec Baldwin is the tough talking actor from the likes of Malice and The Hunt For Red October. He's the husband of Kim Basinger and celebrated puncher of photographers.
Peter Fonda produced and starred in Easy Rider, the seminal 60s movie about hippies and drug culture.
Now both play second fiddle to a bunch of talking, smiley-faced model steam engines in Thomas And The Magic Railroad (U), the first big screen outing for the little blue engine, who has become an international celebrity thanks to the TV series created by Britt Allcroft, who wrote and directed the movie.
All the usual engines are involved Thomas and James, Gordon, Henry and Percy, plus Harold the helicopter and Bertie the bus.
The big change comes with mixing models with flesh and blood human beings, and in particular Mr Conductor (Baldwin), who can make magic happen.
And he needs to, because a nasty old diesel engine is up to no good.
The story also involved as missing engine, a melancholy grandfather (Fonda) and a quest to find a magic railroad.
Little kids will love it and we are talking little. But older ones will have better things to do with their time, and mums and dads may get bored before 85 minutes are up.
But it's a cute, harmless little film and fair play to the Hollywood hotshots who dared to give it a go. Peep peep! Rating: 5 out of 10.
By Steve Webb
swebb@newswilts.co.uk
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