Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 22, 2016

Talk about "the little engine that could." That perfectly describes Thomas in Thomas & Friends: The Great Race, an agreeable little hour-long movie that features everyone's favorite talking tank engine dreaming big about being a star in a big competition. The neat and tidy film, complete with several catchy songs, various moments of high speed action, a few bits of peril, and a heartfelt sampling of good advice, powers through a story built around teaching kids the importance of acceptance, being themselves, and realizing that winning isn't everything. These are hardly groundbreaking themes, but they're presented appealingly and charmingly within the comfortable confines -- and, here, even a bit beyond -- of the Sodor tracks that kids have come to know and love over the years.

Chugging Thomas.

Thomas (voiced by Joseph May) imagines he's not working but rather racing along Sodor's tracks. He loves to go fast and show off, but he has to settle for just impressing the locals. At least until he learns from The Flying Scotsman (voiced by Rufus Jones) of The Great Railway Show, a competition to determine, among other categories, the fastest and strongest engines. All of Sodor's trains want to compete, but Sir Topham Hatt (voiced by Keith Wickham) can only choose a select few. Thomas takes it upon himself to not only impress his boss on the tracks, but by showering him with great ideas about how to best win at the competition. Hatt likes Thomas' advice...and he applies it to other engines. A disappointed Thomas keeps chugging along, but it seems that, with his determination, he'll find a way to wind up at the competition, one way or another.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race plays with a pleasant and gentle cadence. Even through a few scenes of peril -- Thomas is almost knocked off the tracks and into the water, for instance -- the film springs with joy and optimism, showing a big heart and bigger excitement as a framework for its well-intended themes. The movie is all about expectations. Thomas expects to be a shoe-in to represent Sodor at the competition, and he further expects to win. But, as he comes to realize, life doesn't always work out as expected. It's kind of like the tracks he must maneuver throughout the movie and, indeed, the series. There are plenty of straightaways that seem to go on as far as the eye can see. No obstacles, clear skies, and smooth sailing. But sometimes the line gets a little crowded. Occasionally, he's forced to maneuver to another track, which requires only a flick of a switch to put him on an entirely different path. Once or twice, he must face a head-on collision. The movie does a great job of, subtly, mostly, but very obviously to those older viewers paying close attention, telling its story with various train-related metaphors while, at the same time, humanizing the engines enough to make it work, building them beyond a face and a voice but constructing very real character traits that push the story forward and reinforce its themes.

Beyond that, and really including all of that outside of the details specific to this story, Thomas & Friends: The Great Race is a Thomas film through-and-through. It maintains the standard for its animation, which is colorful and adequately detailed, hardly at the top of the digital food chain but certainly cheery and well constructed, getting the most out of what are fairly limited environments. Character diversity is perhaps more impressive than ever, with one of the widest cast of characters the franchise has ever seen in a movie, with all sorts of exotic engines with unique looks and fun personalities to explore. Yet it's mostly about Thomas and his journey to understanding his place on the tracks and the competition as it draws ever closer. One of the movie's key songs comes about halfway through. "You Can Only Be You" summarizes the greatest theme in the movie while giving the story its most important nudge towards its resolution in the final act.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race might lack the polish of big studio feature films, but its 1080p transfer still presents well. Details are fine, particularly evident in close-ups of the train faces where finer textures are easy to spot. Beyond that, rail lines, gravel, stone and brick work around the stations, and natural vegetation along the edges all stand tall and with quality attention to detail. Colors are lively and full, with the primary blue and red Thomas scheme the obvious highlight. A wider variety of shades, such as oranges and greens, on other engines and cars are equally impressive, ditto a variety of leafy greens. Occasional bursts of aliasing are evident and will probably bother videophiles, but younger viewers likely won't care.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack isn't anything special, but it gets the job done. Beyond a few good discrete effects and moments of impressive imaging, usually in the form of trains zipping through the stage from one position to the next, there's not a lot of bustling surround activity. Music stays predominately up front, spread nicely enough out to the sides but lacking that greater surround immersion or even much in the way of prominent support bass. General effects play with good basic clarity, again mostly up front. Dialogue is well prioritized and clear, hanging out in the front-center channel for the duration.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race contains music videos, character shorts, and puzzles. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy are included with purchase. The release also features a non-standard Universal menu.

• Sing-Along Music Video (1080p, 2:21): "Will You Won't You."
• Sing-Along Music Video (1080p, 2:14): "Streamlining."
• Sing-Along Music Video (1080p, 2:14): "Full of Surprises."
• Sing-Along Music Video (1080p, 2:42): "You Can Only Be You."
• 20 Character Shorts (1080p, 25:14): This is a very annoying supplement. It begins identically every time -- all 20 times -- with the same dialogue and graphics, finally showcasing unique racer graphics after about 27 seconds. Why it couldn't have skipped the repeats is anyone's guess. Chances are even kids will get sick of it and skip ahead to the relevant parts. Thomas, of course, is introduced last.
• Guess Who? Puzzles (1080p, 3:20): Non-interactive puzzles that solve themselves and challenge the viewer to guess the identity of the character before the puzzle is finished.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race - The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race is a good little hour-long movie that's all Thomas at its core. It champions a single idea through a fun concept that leads the movie to an exciting and, for the series, fairly big and unique finale. It's a shame the filmmakers couldn't have added a little runtime and more fully explored some of the new and existing engines on display, though. The movie is almost all Thomas, but it still works very well and should entertain fans while reinforcing a couple of good lessons along the way. Universal's Blu-ray contains a few extra, notably the sing-along music videos. Video and audio presentations are fine. Recommended to series fans.