17. Rise of the Guardians
Shockingly, I wasn’t entirely looking forward to revisiting this one. I had seen the film just once before and I recall not being too impressed with it. Time changes things though and upon rewatching it, I’ve realized that no, actually, it’s really fucking good.
I remember one of my bigger issues with the film being the design of some of the humans and for some reason that colored my perception into thinking the issue was the CGI in general. That’s not really true. I was blown away by how beautiful the opening shots of this movie were and on top of that the design of all our main characters is great.
I do still have that problem when it comes to the children but I was able to mostly get over it due to the fact that children in real life don’t look super pretty all the time either. You know? We all come in different shapes and sizes and how the CGI renders us isn’t everything.
Yeah. That’s my copium.
Speaking of our main characters, they’re all great. Alec Baldwin plays a Russian Santa Claus who is just the best, most wholesome weirdo in the world. He’s the kind of Santa who would give you a gun or a sword for Christmas. I can’t help but grin when I see him teleporting between chimneys while claiming that picking up teeth for the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) is going to be epic. They turn it into a competition and he puts up a fucking Christmas Tree in a kids house in place of a quarter under the pillow while laughing maniacally. It’s great.
The Tooth Fairy’s design is so different than what I would have expected. It’s so incredibly different that every time I see it I can’t help but wonder what the origins of it are and think about needing to do further research into it. I can’t help but wonder if it’s an “accurate biblical angel” description thing or something where the famous design we see isn’t rooted in what the actual history of the character’s design is. Or perhaps they just got creative. I could look it up but I’m far too busy so we’ll just say it looks cool.
The Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) is a bit of a hard ass and he’s Australian. He gets around through the use of magic holes in the ground. It’s pretty amazing how his entire thing works. The way he makes eggs and decorates them is just an entire system of odd but fun quirkiness. The same is true of Santa’s workshop honestly. The elves are all weird little cone headed dorks and they work alongside what I assume are a bunch of yetis.
The Sandman is a great, comfy looking character and he’d have to be in order to be the one in charge of giving you a good night’s sleep. He’s a mute, which helps with making him stand out as charming all it’s own but his manner of distributing sleep to the children makes it believable that he could manage doing it every night for everyone around the world. It’s crazy to think about just how many millions of things they do in such a short amount of time but magic just makes anything possible.
Of course, we have the main character to talk about as well, Jack Frost (Chris Pine). He’s coming into his own as a guardian in this movie but before this he was just a troublemaker who went off and did whatever he wanted. No one can see him because no one believes in him yet. It’s apparently been this way for three hundred years too. It’s a bit of a shame.
Granted, he does tend to make things fun. He’s responsible for snow days and helping children sled dangerously through traffic and you gotta love a guy who does that so well that said child gets hit by a couch and gets a tooth knocked out. I could use a couple of those snow days this year. Man.
His journey as a character is well done enough. He never comes off like an asshole or anything like that and his reason for being aloof and uncaring about the position of guardian is sound considering how it works and how long it hasn’t been working for him.
The “Man on the Moon” won’t tell him why he’s here. Apparently, he’s orchestrated this whole thing but he’s never really shown nor does he speak. It’s just… the moon in the sky beaming down on them. That’s it. It does a good job of remaining mystical but you kind of have to take their word for it that the moon is masterminding the heroes here.
Why? Well, to stave off the darkness that comes with Pitch Black (Jude Law), the main villain of the film. Otherwise known as the BoogeyMan.
This guy was probably the biggest issue for me when I saw the film originally. I just recall him not being all that interesting and having a fairly blasé design. After rewatching the film, he’s definitely a bit better than I gave him credit for. Jude Law’s vocal performance is excellent first of all. Second of all, because of his command over the dark and his facial features being minimal, there are a lot of times where the lighting does well to make him look sufficiently scary.
Although, it’s strange. Sometimes he’s the spooky man hiding in the shadows and other times he’s theatrical and bombastic. I won’t say it clashes but it does make it a little hard to get a read on him. It’s also just kind of funny how he turns into a coward towards the end, which is the point. That’s not a knock against him or the film. You’re supposed to not fear him in the end but it’s still a little funny.
The film is very good. It’s a feel good treat to enjoy watching at, around, or even just after the holidays. It didn’t do very good at the box office, which is a shame. Its failure to break even made it so that a co-studio Dreamworks was working with were held back from making more original projects and that’s always a shame. Give it a watch. It deserves it.
| Viewed: |
14 times |
| Added: |
1 month ago
12 Apr 2025 02:01 CEST
|
|
|
