Rise of the Guardians involves four characters from fairy tales: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman who appeal to Jack Frost to stop the Boogeyman from engulfing the world in darkness. It’s kind of a pan-holiday movie that takes place in the days leading up to Easter. It specifically concerns whether children still believe in these individuals. Anyone concerned that they might actually be confronted with something vaguely religious given, you know, the themes of faith in a higher power that this deals with, need not worry. The script has been purged of God or anything remotely theological. We do get the mysterious moon as sort of this inanimate object, however who has chosen Jack Frost to be a new Guardian. They each look to it for direction and guidance, the moon that is. Jack also wrestles with his greatest fear – that children won’t believe in him. Gee whiz. Self obsessed much?
I think the biggest problem with the Rise of the Guardians is that it flounders from a storytelling perspective. The plot throws these four fictional people together because, hey why not? One would’ve been enough, but four makes the narrative needlessly complex and overstuffed with backstories. There is no sense or charm to these oddballs. They’re recognizable portrayals, but then they aren’t. Jack Frost, our main protagonist, is a whiny teen consumed by the fear that people don’t affirm his existence. He sports a hoody and sounds like one of the kids on Wizards of Waverly Place. Santa has a Russian accent and is built like a bodybuilder with “naughty” and “nice” tattoos on his forearms. Huh? The tooth fairy flits around hummingbird-style, but talks akin to some over-enthusiastic mom. The Easter Bunny is a six-foot-one Australian and master of Tai Chi, as he’s quick to explain. Doesn’t seem to be helping because he’s a rather cantankerous fellow at that. Then there’s the Sandman. He was actually my favorite. He doesn’t speak at all.
Rise of the Guardians fails as an interesting story. Characters pop up at random times, do their thing then disappear. There isn’t any rhyme or reason to this mess. The dialogue is full of bland pronouncements that are so boring they don’t even register: “It is our job to protect the children of the world. For as long as they believe in us, we will guard them with our lives,” says Santa at one point. Zzzzzzzz. “Why me?” Jack asks when they select him. “You have something special inside. I can feel it… ” says Santa. That’s about as deep as it gets. There’s some breathtaking visuals to be sure and there are a few chuckles here and there, but the action is way too cluttered and frantic to truly appreciate the animated details. There’s lots of dazzling displays that the latest 3-D computer technology can muster, but it does nothing for the story other than to show how much money DreamWorks has to spend. I’ve always been a fan of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Pitch Black, the Boogeyman, kind of recalls a male version of Maleficent, the evil sorceress from that film (and the best Disney villain ever incidentally). I was really rooting for him in fact. There’s even a climatic battle featuring a sand glitter vs. black dust face-off between the Boogeyman and the Sandman. It was pretty at least.
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