Directed By: Peter Ramsey
Starring: Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Jude Law, Isla Fisher
Rating: PG for thematic elements and some mildly scary action
Run Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Synopsis: A magical and secret group called The Guardians of Childhood - comprised of Santa Claus (Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Fisher) and the Sandman - protect the hopes and dreams of children worldwide. Through their classic duties (i.e. delivering Christmas gifts, Easter eggs, leaving gifts for lost teeth) they must maintain children's belief in them in order to protect them. But when an ancient evil named Pitch (Law) rises from the darkness and threatens the Guardians' very existence, they must reach out to the lonely and misunderstood Jack Frost (Pine) to join them in their cause.
REVIEW
Andrew: Hello readers! Sarah and I were able
to catch an advance showing of this holiday season’s newest animated film,
Dreamworks’ Rise of the Guardians, based on William Joyce’s “The Guardians
of Childhood” book series. In a neat spin on some classic childhood characters,
the film’s protagonists – The Guardians, if you will – are Santa Claus, the Easter
Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and their newest member, Jack Frost.
Sarah: And here they’re all called something
different: Santa Claus is just called North, the Easter Bunny is E. Astor
Bunnymund, the Tooth Fairy is simply Tooth and the Sandman is called Sandy.
A: Correct. And what the Guardians do,
essentially, is protect children’s wishes, hopes, dreams, etc. and try their
best to bring joy to kids around the world. They strive to continually ensure that children "believe" in them, because it's only through strong belief do they truly exist, and only when they exist can they defend the children against evil forces that may threaten them, particularly The Boogeyman…
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| North (a.k.a. Santa Claus) explains to Jack Frost that every light on their globe is a child who believes in the Guardians' existence, while Tooth, Sandy and Bunnymund watch from the side. It's really a neat idea that's executed quite well. |
S: Who is named Pitch, and likes to turn
children’s dreams into nightmares, which in a genius move are shown as dark
horses, or “Night Mares.”
A: So this is a movie that we’ve seen
the trailer for, it wasn’t one that I necessarily felt was a must-see…
S: Oh, I did.
A: Really?
S: Definitely! I mean, the holidays are
coming up, one of its main characters is Santa Claus and then THE main
character is Jack Frost, so it’s totally winter-related. I was really excited
about seeing this movie and I’m glad we caught it because it is SO cute and
touching!
A: It’s very cute, but the word you just
used is probably the best way to describe it, it’s very touching. It’s very
heart-felt and it actually made me a little verklempt!
S: Oh it made me verklempt, too! I think
that’s funny, when movies like this do that to us. But it was BEAUTIFULLY
animated…
A: That was certainly it’s biggest
strength.
S: And the best thing about how it looks
is we got to see it in 3D and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Just stunning
animation, and they made some character choices that only strengthened that
animation. Like Sandy doesn’t have a voice, so instead everything he does is
through facial expressions or little sand-images popping above his head, and
his biggest power is obviously making kids fall asleep and the way they show
him doing that is beautiful.
I gotta give
Dreamworks a lot of credit because they have a lot of good animators on their
team and they did a bang-up job here.
A: I did love how Sandy branches out all
these streams of sand all across towns and makes them dance and creates dreams
for all the kids with the sand. It’s impressive. The particles of sand and the
glow, it’s all gorgeous.
I loved that
each Guardian has their own home world, and how each one is vast yet incredibly
detailed and beautiful all on their own. Obviously Santa Claus is at the North
Pole, Tooth has a Tooth Palace of her own, the Easter Bunny has this
cool-looking nature underworld…
S: And he has a name for it, but I can’t
remember what it was.
A: But they’re all beautifully rendered.
They each look like their own world, as they should. You get an actual feel for
how each character fit into their own world and it helped you understand those
characters better. The North Pole looks great, but I really loved the idea that
while Santa does have elves around, they’re not actually the ones who make the
toys. Instead he employs a bunch of Yetis to make the toys as well as be the
security around the place.
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| Every world that the respective Guardians hail from is beautifully rendered and gives great detail to each character. For example, the Easter Bunny lives in a wonderful world where he creates each Easter egg for every child. |
S: Everything is amazingly thought out,
which is a huge testament to the books, I’d imagine. Plus the secondary
characters…animated films, for a number of years have been hit-or-miss with
their secondary characters that are meant for comic relief. Recently there’s
been some successes like Mater in Pixar’s Cars and the Minions in Universal’s Despicable
Me, and I think Dreamworks has found another success in Santa’s elves
and the Yetis, along with Tooth’s little tooth fairies that help her out…
A: Baby Teeth, as they’re called.
S: Yup…they’re all hilarious and cute in
their own rights and I’m sure Dreamworks will be very happy they have some new
toy characters they can sell as stuffed animals.
A: Let’s talk about the movie’s plot now…
S: Well it’s a pretty simple plot but
that isn’t a bad thing, it means it was easy to follow and shouldn’t have been
terribly confusing for children. What did you think?
A: It’s definitely a simple plot, as
well it should be because it’s geared towards kids. But while it’s a basic
premise it’s also a classic premise of the innocence and joy that children
inherently have. I loved that the Guardians exist because children believe in
them. Even if adults don’t, the children do and that’s where they get their
life force from.
Pitch, must
like the Guardians, only has life and power when children believe in him but he
hasn’t had that since the Dark Ages when the Guardians originally rose up and
defeated him. So now Pitch wants to come back, snuff out the kids’ belief in
all of the Guardians and he ends up becoming quite the credible threat.
That entire
idea is one that is very touching to me in how the filmmakers executed it. It
made me think, because we’re adults now, when we were kids we ABSOLUTELY
believed in all of these characters (ok, maybe not Jack Frost as much, but the
others definitely).
S: And I think at the heart of every
adults, they still want to believe in those things because childhood is a
magical and fun time that brings joy and excitement to their lives. This film
helped relive that.
A: Another aspect of the plot that I
felt was pretty strong was the storyline involving Jack Frost, the movie’s main
protagonist. At the start of the film we learn that Jack was born out of a
frozen lake in the middle of the woods, created by The Man on the Moon (a full
moon, of course) but he’s never told by the moon WHY he’s there and what his
purpose is until he’s chosen by the moon to be a new member of the Guardians.
S: And even then he’s not quite sure why
the moon has chosen him, so he’s on a quest throughout the whole movie…
A: A struggle, really…
S: To discover who he is and why he was
chosen to be a Guardian. When we finally find out why, and what the inner
source of his power is, it’s all quite touching.
A: Hence the reason it made us
verklempt!
S: Yes! I really liked Rise
of the Guardians. I really, truly didn’t have any problems with it.
A: I didn’t have any problems with it
either, but we haven’t even talked about the other strength the movie has going
for it. We talked about how gorgeous the animation is but we haven’t talked
about the voice acting!
S: Oh yeah! And there are some big names
in this one! We have Chris Pine (People Like Us) voicing the main protagonist,
Jack Frost, Alec Baldwin (NBC’s 30 Rock) voices North, Isla Fisher (Bachelorette)
voices Tooth, Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables) voices the Easter Bunny and Jude
Law (Anna Karenina) voices Pitch. They all do an amazing job. I mean, when the
Easter Bunny opens his mouth it’s obviously Hugh Jackman…
A: But at the same time, rarely do we in
America ever see Hugh Jackman in a film where he uses his normal Australian
accent.
S: That’s true, he’s usually American or
British. But I mean it’s still so clearly Hugh Jackman that it’s funny.
 |
| Arguably the biggest strength of the film is how perfectly cast each character was, in particular Alec Baldwin as North, Hugh Jackman as Bunnymund and Isla Fisher as Tooth. |
A: True. I liked the idea that the Easter
Bunny is Australian. I also think Isla Fisher is perfect as the Tooth Fairy.
Having now seen it, I can’t think of another actress who should have voiced
that character.
S: Maybe Reese Witherspoon?
A: Maybe. But Isla Fisher…we got it in
Wedding Crashers and Bachelorette…
S: It actually reminded me of her voice
from Confessions of a Shopaholic. I know you’ve never seen it, but she plays a
very bubbly character like she does here.
A: She just has a great voice for the
role. She has a very bubbly and happy voice that fit the character perfectly.
Alec Baldwin is great as North, his Russian accent is amazing.
S: I never would have realized that was
Alec Baldwin if I hadn’t known that it was him going in. I love that they make
Santa Russian.
A: And he’s almost like a Russian
gangster because he has a ton of tattoos, including some tattoo sleeves that
say “naughty” on one arm and “nice” on the other. But yeah, you wouldn’t know
it was Alec Baldwin if you just went in blind.
S: I thought did a good job casting Jude
Law as the villain…
A: It actually took me a while to get
used to his voice coming from the villain, and that’s one thing for me…it took
me a bit to get used to Law’s voice for Pitch and it took me a while to get
used to Chris Pine as Jack Frost.
S: I didn’t have a problem with either.
A: In the end I felt like they were both
good choices, especially Pine as Jack Frost when you get towards the end and we
find out what his history is. THAT is when Pine’s voice really works for me, or
when he’s playing around with kids.
Otherwise,
and I got this from seeing the trailer originally, there was a disconnect for
me between Pine’s voice and the way the character of Jack Frost looked/acted.
As the movie went along I got used to it and it grew on me. Same with Jude Law as
Pitch.
So, the
voice-acting – and we mentioned this with Wreck-It Ralph – is one of the most
important things for an animated film.
S: It really is, because if you miscast
a character then it can ruin that character and maybe even the film incredibly
quick. It could destroy a movie, at least in our eyes, it really could. For the
average movie-goer they may not have a problem with it, but you never know.
Ok, overall I
really liked Rise of the Guardians. I thought the filmmakers did a great
job, it’s definitely one to see in theatres because it’s so gorgeous…
A: And this is one we’re highly
suggesting you see in 3D if you can because it just adds to the depth of the
entire universe that this film lives in.
S: And it’s a great family movie! It’s a
great one to bring the kids to, but make sure your kids are able to sit through
some parts that might be a little scary. Sometimes when Pitch is on the screen
he does some things that might be too dark for some kids.
A: Agreed. But yeah, Rise of the
Guardians is wonderfully done and I think it’s going to be a huge hit over the
holiday season.
S: A HUGE hit, for sure. This one is
going to be a holiday classic someday, mark my words.
A: And I hope they make another one.
They have the material, since it is a book series, after all.
S: Count me in as being looking forward
to a sequel!
FINAL VERDICT: A must-see in theatres!
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| (Individual Scores - S: 4.5/5 A: 4.5/5) |
Photo Courtesies: Collider, Cartoon Brew, BeyondHollywood.com, rufftoon.tumblr.com
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