Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie

The animation, story and dialogue all feel so pedestrian and, despite the globetrotting theme, parochial.

The whole thing has a straight-to-DVD quality, or perhaps a TV episode padded out with a few limp songs.

Teamwork, diversity, mild peril greet engine on global trip.

There are some decent messages for that [younger] age group.

It's passable entertainment for young children, though the introduction of a race car as a key character looks like a sorry capitulation to Pixar's least appealing franchise.

It's short of charm but features strong female, African and Asian characters for the first time. Toot, toot!

It is not much of a thrill ride, despite all those exclamation marks in the title.

As arduous as trying to push a locomotive through treacle while someone sings nursery rhymes in your face.

Colourful and cute in places, but grown-up fans of the older series will mourn for the days of Ringo Starr's voiceover... and the quaintness of Sodor

An impersonal slice of television that feels out of place on the big screen.