Every week, my panel of experts and I gather to promote discourse over the popular franchise 'Thomas & Friends'. Because of our extraordinary intelligence quotient (140 or higher!) we concluded that we must gape upon many of the movies in this franchise (in laymen's terms, we mean 'watch'!). We consumed the United Kingdom release, and found that the voices were not up to par with the original, not to mention the syncing of the lips. Ashima, a foreign train who came to participate in the 'Great Race', had incredibly inconsistent voice acting. Problems regarding Ashima are further illustrated by Thomas acting in a manner a 'Simp' would, my team of experts and I found this extraordinarily distasteful. This was only one of the multitude of problems that this movie contained. The soundtrack for this movie is not currently on the music streaming app, Spotify, and this enraged a particular few of my experts. We implore the director and the advertising department to place the soundtrack on Spotify. It is borderline criminal the fact this soundtrack is not on Spotify. A redeeming quality of this movie was that my panel of experts and I were particularly enamored by the overwhelming allure the foreign trains brought onto not only the cast members, but the viewer as well. This quality pushed the movie up from two stars to four stars. While there were highs and lows in this movie, it was still a somewhat enjoyable experience. My panel of experts and I plan to continue consuming and reviewing Thomas & Friends movies.

Good day.

Just giving it a 10 to try up its rating. It's not bad compared to the utter dross that we get now this is good

There's a story in the original Thomas collection, by Rev Awdry, involving the Flying Scotsman, a relation of one of the engines on Sodor. In this film, he arrives on his way to the Mainland to join the Great Engine Show, an event Thomas thinks he should be a part of and tries to come up with ways he should.

The most noticeable thing about this story are the number of songs it contains. A few sound like Andrew Lloyd Webber pieces, and "streamlining" sounds a lot like "greased lightning".

The much reported exotic engines seem under used, given the hype - most of the story is focused on Thomas, which seems a waste to me - with a couple of exceptions. Ashima provides Thomas with a moral aspect to follow, and while Vinnie is a Canadian engine, it's hard to decide if he's really modelled on an American footballer, with his helmet. And it's a leap to include a train with overhead power and a pantograph; can't see Sodor copying that design.

It's nicely drawn, with the foreign engines looking like their real life versions.

The rest of the main steamy and diesel crews all play roles, and it's pretty obvious the story is a vehicle for toys (and given the current hype around the real Flying Scotsman, it's definitely tapping in),so if you're kids are into wooden railway or take 'n play, expect some new requests after you see this.