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Despite some creative character designs and ideas, RISE OF THE GUARDIANS' greatest threat is pandering to a younger audience, says Capone!!!

Published at: Nov. 22, 2012, 2:35 p.m. CST

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

A great idea that turns into a decidedly average film--it happens all the time, but the animated work RISE OF THE GUARDIANS really left me wondering how a film touting the power of believing in the fantastical could be so uninspired and fall back on age-old, kid-movie devices. How can a film that asks me to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny (sorry, Jewish kids, you're not the demo for this film, apparently), the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Jack Frost and the Boogeyman not believe in its audience to be a little smarter and perhaps even a little darker, which is ironic since the bad guy in this film (also called Pitch Black) is attempting to make the world a better place for the nightmares he instills in children.

GUARDIANS' "hero" is the newly anointed Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), who (as we see in the opening scene) was apparently birthed after his human self drowned in an icy lake. But he is brought back as an ice-and snow-wielding scamp who is invisible to humans, but can cause all sorts of trouble and fun with his powers. An early scene has him propelling a young child on a sled through traffic. What joy! But Jack is a sad young man because no one really believes in him or can see him, so all of his good-time powers go unappreciated. But when Pitch Black (Jude Law) rears his ugly head in the world (it seems he does this every so often), the Man in the Moon designates that there must be one more heroic member of the Guardians added to the roster to help save the children of the planet from having nightmares every time they sleep.

It seems that the Guardians' main objective is to keep imagination alive, at least for kids. But their motivations are somewhat selfish because as long as kids believe in them, they stay powerful. It's a cyclical relationship. If Pitch can destroy Christmas, Easter and keep the Tooth Fairy from delivering cash money, children's belief in the Guardians will fade. Sure, I dig the way the Guardians are rendered -- Santa (Alec Baldwin) sporting a heavy Russian accent and two broadswords; an Autralian Bunny (High Jackman) with his boomerangs and Crocodile Dundee attitude; or Tooth (Isla Fisher) just looking hot and commanding an army of "baby teeth" fairies to do her bidding. Oddly, the Sandman (whose job is to give kids good dreams) doesn't speak; maybe with a high-profile cast like this, the studio couldn't afford another actor.

My issues with RISE OF THE GUARDIANS have to do with pandering. Despite all of these great characters, the filmmakers (led by first-time director and veteran storyboard artist Peter Ramsey) choose to devote much of the film to a human character, Jamie (Dakota Goyo), who at one point in the story is the only child in the world who still believes in any of these imaginary characters.

Hate to turn on my own kind, but the humans in this movie are rather flat. Obviously, they're necessary, but they're treated as something of an afterthought in this story. If as much time and energy had been spent on developing Jamie as the creators did on Santa's souped-up sled, I might have been more invested in the dreamscapes of children. That being said, Pitch Black is one of the coolest animated villains I've seen in quite some time, and the way he conjures nightmare creatures to battle the Guardians is fairly creative.

I'll never discourage filmmakers from doing their most to inspire creativity and imagination, but by stating their goals of doing so so blatantly and repeatedly, I felt like I spent much of RISE OF THE GUARDIANS dodging the hammer that was trying to hit me on the head over and over again. I should emphasize, the movie looks gorgeous, the character designs (outside of the humans) are inspired, and even the idea of a superhero group made up of these types of characters is wonderful... on paper.

The noble effort is all up there on the screen, but something about the final product left me decidedly uninspired. And in a year with a solid number of worthy animated works, RISE OF THE GUARDIANS doesn't even approach that level.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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