Movie Title: Rise of the Guardians
Director: Peter Ramsey
Date Released: November 21st, 2012
Date Seen: November 21st, 2012
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
If you’re bored over Thanksgiving break, after the family has left, and you’re in a food coma, but the kids are annoying and want to go to something – take them to see this movie.
If it’s just another weekend and they want to go see a movie – go see this movie.
If you’re looking for something to rent – go get this movie.
If you’re still a kid at heart and/or love kids movies – go see this movie.
As a 22 year old (who went to see this movie with a 19 and a 21 year old), I loved this movie. It was still super cute like you want your kids movies to be, had hilarious moments, and had a pretty good plot. I actually laughed out loud at some moments, which trust me, is rare.
The best part about this movie is the characters, and the twist on classic characters. Jack Frost is pretty much what you think he is, a fun loving boy – but we do find out about his back story, before he was Jack Frost so that’s kind of cool. The Tooth Fairy is a part humming bird fairy person thing that has little hummingbirds (and mice in the European division) go collect her teeth for her. The Easter Bunny is an Australian bad ass with a boomerang. The Sandman doesn’t talk and expresses himself using little pictures above his head made out of dream sand. And then there’s Santa – who goes by “North” actually. He has a thick Russian accent, tattoos (one saying naughty and the other nice on either arm), and has a group of yeti’s working for him. Some of the funniest moments revolve around Santa, I think. For example, Jack points out, as we walks through the toy factory, that he always thought the elves built the toys. The yeti’s are the ones actually doing it. Santa says “we just let them think they do….” and shows a group of incompetent elves making stupid and dangerous creations, but having fun. Loved the elves. They reminded me of the minions from “Despicable Me”… every time one was on screen, you were laughing.
Some people might have a problem with the lack of religious associations with Easter and Christmas…. I mean, they don’t mention them AT ALL. And also, if the kids don’t believe in you anymore, then you start to “go away” or get smaller, or whatever. I was waiting for like a “oh well, it doesn’t matter if they don’t believe in me! there’s still the REAL meaning of the holiday” but nope, none of that. I’m not religious so it bothered me for all of maybe 2 minutes, then I was over it. But others might be bothered by it.
After having seen this movie in 2D, I wish I had seen it in 3D. It’s an animated movie, which are sometimes hit or miss with the 3D – but there was a lot of scenes that I thought to myself “Damn, this would have been even cooler in 3D”. Most of them involved the sandman – who was made out of gold sparkles and would make gold sparkle dreams appear above peoples heads when he put them to sleep. That would have been cool in 3D. Yes, it’s more expensive, so maybe don’t do the whole family to the 3D, but if it’s just you and your friend going to see it, splurge and go for it.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis
The movie opens with Jack Frost’s “birth”. He is seen floating up, watching the moon, from under a frozen lake. A staff is lying next to him which he discovers gives him the power to create frost everywhere. He plays around a bit and also discovers he can fly on the wind. He ends up on top of a tree, sees a village, and heads down there looking for people. He walks in saying hi to people – then realizes, no one can see him. Jack Frost is narrating the whole time about how he doesn’t know who he is, just that his name is Jack Frost, because the man in the moon told him so.
300 years later – present day
Now we go to the North Pole and meet Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), who prefers to go by North. We also meet the yetis, who work for Santa, and the elves, tiny little creatures with bells on their hats. North is a hilarious but so awesome take on Santa. He looks like you’d expect, but with the addition of some incredible “naughty” and “nice” tattoos on his arms. He also has a great Russian accent. He looks like an awesome badass, but the first scene we see him in he is carving a piece of ice – and makes an ice rollercoaster and is clearly the Santa you’d expect (fun loving, full of wonder, etc.). He is just great. There’s some funny elf moments in here (we see that they’re a little mischievous and have clear individual personalities), and then a yeti comes in frantically trying to get North’s attention. The yeti shows North the globe that is in the center of the workshop – it has lights where all the children in the world are that “believe” (in any of the guardians). A dark cloud is kind of circling the globe, and North tries to figure out what it is, and then sees a shadow of a man and freaks out – so he calls the other guardians for an emergency meeting. He calls them by sending out the northern lights. It’s pretty cool.
So now we meet the other 3 guardians. First is the Easter bunny (Hugh Jackson). He is a big bunny (same size as North, pretty much) that could kick ass. He has a boomerang and is based in Australia. The tooth fairy (Isla Fisher) is part hummingbird and she has her little hummingbird helpers go and collect teeth for her and bring them back to her castle thing. They store the teeth in individual containers for each children. Tooth treasures every tooth that comes in and tells the little hummingbird things, if it’s a kids first tooth to give them something extra. Pretty cute. Then there is sandman. He was my favorite. He doesn’t talk, but expresses himself through these little emoticons above his head. He looked really cool, tiny, fat, and made out of this gold sand. Every night he stands on his golden cloud of sand and the sand kind of goes out to each and every kid, making them sleep and have good dreams.
At North’s workshop, the Guardians are all kind of confused as to why they are called there. The Easter Bunny is even kind of pissed, mostly because it’s only a couple of days before Easter. North explains that he saw “Pitch”. We learn that “Pitch” is Pitch Black. He is kind of the opposite of the guardians. Instead of wanting to bring joy to children he feeds off their fear. Easter is skeptical, mostly because North didn’t “really” see Pitch, just that black shadow and cloud on the globe. They start fighting, about how it’s before Easter and this is a stupid distraction and blah blah, and the whole time Sandman is trying to get their attention. It’s hilarious. The way he finally gets their attention is by grabbing the elf next to him and shaking him so his bell rings. He points out that the moon is trying to get their attention. It doesn’t really actually do anything, just kind of shines it’s light on the floor. There, a shadow of Pitch appears, so Bunny and Tooth finally believe Santa. They ask the moon what they are going to have to do and then suddenly the floor opens up and a crystal thing appears. Apparently this means the moon is choosing a new guardian. They all start guessing who they think it will be, like the sandman guesses the leprechaun. Easter says “anyone but (someone I can’t remember)”… And then it’s revealed that it’s Jack Frost. Tooth immediately has a “omg he’s so dreamy” look about her, as do all her hummingbirds. Easter says “just kidding, (person) would be ok”. He clearly doesn’t like Jack Frost. Later we find out it’s because he holds a grudge from one time Jack Frost caused a blizzard on Easter Sunday. So they now prepare for Jack Frost.
Jack is hanging out in a town, having fun with some kids. Yeah, they can’t see him, but he enjoys throwing snowballs at them, starting snowball fights, and making everyone (even the kind of scary girl, Cupcake) have fun (by blasting a little snowflake in their face). One boy in particular, Jamie Bennett (Dakota Goyo), Jack follows for a while. Mostly because he heard Jamie’s mom tell him to be careful and “you don’t want Jack Frost nipping at your nose!” Jamie asked who that was and his mom said it was just an expression. So of course, Jack is super excited, thinking that someone actually knows about him, so he lets Jamie have the day of his life. After starting a snowball fight, Jamie somehow lands up on a sled – and is sledding through the streets of his town. Jack creates a perfect frost path to protect Jamie from harm, while having super fun times, and ends up with Jamie landing into a snow pile in the center of town. Jamie and all his friends are talking about how super awesome that was, and so Jack is having a big ego boost – and then Jamie notices that a tooth came out! So then they get all excited about how Jamie can put it under his pillow tonight, and the tooth fairy will come. So Jack is sad again, since no one loves him/believes in him/can see him. That night, he watches over the town as Sandman floats down and puts all the kids to sleep, so we see some of the kids we met dreams. We see Jamie not want to go to sleep – and stay up with his toddler sister, Sofie, to wait for the tooth fairy, but Mom takes Sophie away, and Sandman puts Jamie to sleep, duh. Then Jack notices something weird – kind of a strange black cloud, made out of sandman sand, but black. Weird. He follows it, ends up in an alley, and who is there? The Easter Bunny! He distracts Jack for a second, while two yeti’s put a bag over his head, and then create a portal in the air to go back to the North Pole. Bunny opts to take his tunnels back to the north pole, but they all get there at the same time. They dump Jack out and North is there all excited, and asking Jack if the Yeti treated him right. The tooth fairy is all gooey-eyed again, duh. Jack is confused about why he is there, and they explain that he’s been chosen as a guardian! Woo hoo! He gets to be a protector of children!
Jack doesn’t like the idea. Why? Because he didn’t ask for that. No one even believes in him, so why would he want to do that? He is especially pissed when he finds out that the man in the moon told them that Jack should be the next Guardian – how come in 300 years the moon *suddenly* decided to do something with Jack. He makes a good point. He’s been alone for 300 years with no purpose and now this is shoved upon him. North decides to take Jack on a little walk. First they walk around the workshop, which is pretty hilarious, considering that Jack mentions he’s always been trying to break into the workshop, but has never gotten past the yeti’s (and he says “hi fred!” to a yeti as he walks by). Santa takes him to his own private workshop, which is full of ice sculptures – and you realize, that Santa spends his time making these little molds out of ice for the toys. You can see so many of the toys you just saw (or later see) in his room made out of ice. It’s pretty cool. My sister noticed this way more than I did. I was just like “oh shit, this is cool”. Inside of the office, North confronts Jack, demanding to know what his “center” is. Jack is like “what…?” just like most of the audience is. North goes on to explain that everyone is like a little Matryoshka doll (nesting dolls)…. or if you want to think like Shrek, everyone has layers… like an onion. He gives Jack a little nesting doll of himself (of North). Jack starts going through it, and it’s layers like happy, jolly, strong, fierce, other things, and then the last little doll – looks like a little baby. North asks Jack what he thinks it means. Jack says all he sees are big eyes. North explains that yes – those big eyes help him see the wonder in everything – and it’s the wonder that he sees in things that he’s able to give back to the children. About that time, he opens up the door and we see even more of the workshop and the super awesome toys and it’s pretty cool.
Jack starts to wonder (ha) what his center is, when we see some type of commotion going on – Tooth is seen flying away quickly, and Easter tells them there is some type of commotion going on at the Tooth Fairy castle. So they all get ready to head over there. Easter doesn’t want to take Santa’s sleigh, and neither does Jack (because who wants to ride in a rickety old sleigh, anyway?). Then he sees the sleigh, and says just kidding and hops in. Easter still puts up a fight but Santa makes him get on it and off they go. Easter is still terrified the whole sleigh ride, but Jack and Sandman are having fun. Sandman even throws his hands up a couple of times like they’re on a roller coaster. So hilarious. They get to about to Tooth’s castle – and discover an army of nightmares – these black sand horse things – have kidnapped all the hummingbirds and stolen ALL the teeth from her castle. Jack manages to save one hummingbird, named Babytooth. Of course, Tooth is devastated – because this was all she works for. She also reveals at some point in here that the reason they keep the teeth is that they hold memories of the child. They even had Jack’s old teeth. Jack perks up, with a “what?? before I was Jack Frost?!” kind of attitude. Tooth explains that all the guardians were “someone” before they became the mythical creatures. If she would have known that Jack didn’t remember his past life, she could have shown him his teeth… but not now, since they’re all gone…
Pitch makes himself known and they kind of whine at him – but Pitch is more interested in the fact that Jack Frost is there. He doesn’t know that Jack has been made a guardian or the little personal battle that he is having with himself – but does see Jack as a neutral party – someone who knows what Pitch feels like, since no one ever sees him. His goal is to make the Guardians feel like him again – worthless. Apparently there’s a little stipulation with the whole being a Guardian thing we never knew about – if the children don’t believe in you, you lose your power. Tooth is already visibly showing signs of weakening. Oh no. Pitch points out that children must all be waking up now, finding that their teeth are still under their pillow – and thus losing faith in the Tooth Fairy. Pitch leaves.
The guardians decide that one thing they can do – is to collect the teeth themselves. There is about a 5 minute long scene that is hilarious of them all turning it into a competition of collection the most teeth. So this goes on, honestly, was great, and of course what house do they end up at? Jamie’s house. Jamie wakes up though, and is ecstatic to see everyone there – except Jack Frost. He still can’t see him. So Jack is all sad again. I forgot how it happens, but they have the sandman start to put Jamie to sleep with a sandball – and it bounces over the room and makes everyone fall asleep, except it misses Jack (and doesn’t have an affect on Sandy, duh). They see a horse go by their window, one of Pitch’s sand horses, and so they go out to chase it hoping that everyone will wake up soon. While they chase the horse, we see Sofie, Jamie’s toddler little sister, waltz into the room where all the other guardians are sleeping, take Santa’s little magical snowglobe thing, throw it (so it creates a wormhole), and she notices the Easter bunny and says “BUNNY!” and then walks into the wormhole. Oh no. So Sandman and Jack end up cornered in the middle of the street by all of Pitch’s nightmare horses. He explains that it’s taken years but he has perfected turning the sand into nightmares… and that’s his plan…. to make all the children have bad dreams, which will make them stop believing, and thus allow Pitch to once again reign the land (since he feeds on fear). By now the other guardians have woken up and join the battle – that ends up in the clouds. It goes on for a bit, with Jack really struggling. He does manage though to do this weird crazy frost burst that gets rid of almost all the nightmares…. but it causes him to pass out…. and then Sandy gets overtaken… and all of his gold sand and his gold body gets enveloped by the black nightmare sand. So he “dies”. It was super sad.
Next we go to a little funeral for Sandman. Afterwards they decide that they really have to step up their game – Easter is only a day away, so they decide to make it the best Easter ever. They all head to Bunny’s castle – which reminded me of Easter Island (probably for a reason… ha). It was like an island, with big giant egg head statues everywhere. And little eggs that we saw how they are painted and colored. When they arrive at Bunny’s place (this time taking his tunnels to get there) – they find Sofie there. None of the guardians know what to do with her… not even how to handle being with an actual awake/live kid. So Jack helps them play with Sofie while they all paint the eggs. They are already for a great Easter – but someone needs to take Sofie home. Jack volunteers. They tell him they really need him to be back asap – because so far the most effective thing against Pitch was Jack’s weird frost burst thing. He promises to hurry back. He takes Sofie back to her bed and covers her up – and then sees a horse out the window – so of course, he follows it. It leads him to a hole in the ground, but covered by a bed (Boogeyman lives under your bed, remember!?). Jack goes down into the hole – and finds Pitch’s lair. All of Tooth’s hummingbirds are there. He manages to break open a cage – but so few kids believe in the tooth fairy now, even despite their best efforts to get all the teeth, that the hummingbirds can’t fly. Oh no. Then Jack hears a noise – someone calling his name – it’s coming from the pile where all the teeth containers are. He digs and digs but can’t find it – and then Pitch appears. He teases Jack with the tooth container for a long while, with Jack chasing the shadow around Pitch’s lair – and it reminded me of the scene in Labyrinth – when she chases the Goblin King in the weird staircase room. Pitch is making Jack feel bad, about how he can’t do anything, and no one believes in him, and they’re really the same, and blah blah blah. He then points out that Jack always messes everything up… like now.. and Jack turns around, and is back in one of the Bunny’s tunnels… and all the Easter eggs are broken. He finds the Guardians, who are sadly watching Jamie and his friends try to find eggs – but they’re no where. After the kids leave, the Guardians ask Jack wtf happened – the nightmares attacked and ALL the eggs were destroyed. Bunny is heartbroken as are the other guardians. They’re all super pissed too once they find out what Jack was gone for – getting his teeth pretty much.
Jack kind of goes off on his own – and ends up in his own little world – up somewhere cold, of course – and is moping around. Then he sees Pitch. Pitch is trying to give him the “join me, and together, we can rule everyone – cold and dark go well together”. Jack refuses – then Pitch starts threatening him – he wants Jack’s staff (which holds all of Jack’s power). He refuses to give it to him – until Pitch shows what he’s hiding in his hand. A terrified Babytooth (the hummingbird that he saved) being squished between his fingers. Pitch says if he gives him the staff, he’ll let her go. So Jack does. Pitch doesn’t let babytooth go, saying that he lied, and instead throws her down into an abyss, breaks Jack’s staff, and throws him and the broken staff down it too. Then Pitch leaves. So down in the hole, Jack tries to warm up babytooth – but can’t, because when he touches her, it’s cold, obviously. Instead she crawls into his jacket and finds the tooth container still in there. She kind of tells Jack in her own little hummingbird way that now is a good time to open it. We see a flashback.
Jack appeared to be a great older brother, always playing with all the kids, etc. One day, him and his little sister go out to a frozen pond to go ice skating. In the middle of the pond, it starts to crack. The little girl freaks out and is terrified. Rather than have her get hurt just from worry, Jack tells her that they are going to play a little game. He grabs a nearby stick (that is shaped just like his staff), and manages to propel the little girl off the ice with it. He then starts to try to get off but falls in – we see him fall deep into the frozen water, his hair change color, and then we see his “birth” that we saw at the beginning of the movie. When Jack comes out of his little flashback – he remembers who he was and now has a new feeling of self worth – that he is actually meant to be a guardian – he always was – and he knows what his center is. I forgot if he mentions it here or not. But it’s pretty obvious… it’s fun! He tries and tries for a moment and manages to get his staff back together. I think it went back together because now Jack believed in himself. Hooray.
Pitch is seen dancing around his version of North’s globe – the one that shows where all the kids that believe are. The lights are rapidly going out – and they all do. All but one. And we know who that is…. flash to Jamie, sitting in his room. He is telling a stuffed bunny that he just needs a sign – some type of sign to let him know that what he saw the other night was real. An sign. Jack watches this from the window… unfortunate, since Jamie can’t see Jack. But Jack has a stroke of genius. Right when Jamie is about to give up, he notices some frost on the window – and an Easter egg and bunny being drawn in it. Jack is happy and accidentally makes it start snowing in Jamie’s room. Some of it hits his nose – and all of a sudden, Jamie looks right at where Jack is standing and says “Jack Frost?!” So he can see him. Yay! They have a little awesome so much fun party – and then they go outside – and Santa, Tooth, and a now teeny tiny baby Easter bunny (but still with his same voice and attitude) are there. Just in time for some nightmares to show up. The battle is really hard to explain – there’s a moment when Jamie is terrified, and Jack uses his newly discovered “fun” center to turn making the nightmares go away into a game. They also get some of Jamie’s friends up – who then see all the other guardians, and start believing again. The battle was fun because it was a kid battle. There was a moment when on the street all the guardians are standing in front of the kids to protect them. Pitch asks that’s great, but who is going to protect the guardians? Then the kids step forward and say they will. Pitch kind of laughs and some of his nightmares behind him get scarier. Pitch says that kids will always believe in darkness and nightmares. Jamie says “I may believe in them, but that doesn’t mean I’m scared of them” and with that, the battle continues. With the kids confidence, it works out that if the kids touch the nightmares and aren’t scared – they turn into dream sand again, the pretty gold kind. They do this enough – and manage to get all the sand together – and Sandman comes back! Yay!! The final battle is between Sandman and Pitch and it is beautiful. Seriously. Once the kids win, Sandman gives the best dreams ever to all the kids everywhere – causing some huge dreams to appear all around them. Such as giant dinosaurs, dolphins, stingrays (that one was hilarious), and it’s just beautiful. This was the scene that I was 100% wishing we’d seen it in 3D. After the battle, with Pitch gone, alone, and no longer seen, the kids and the guardians go down to a frozen pond (conveniently this one is safe) and now have a little inauguration ceremony for Jack to officially become a Guardian. Everyone leaves, but Jamie is sad that Jack has to go. Jack says “just because the sun goes down you don’t stop believing in it, right? So just because I’m gone doesn’t mean I’m not there.” Aw cute.
Overall: 7.5/10
Great family movie, not to scary for little kids, funny for both kids and adults, and a nice little messaging about finding yourself.
Director: Jon Wright
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