I’m finding that I increasingly feel the need for a little sleep during films. I don’t know if this is due to my watching a lot of boring films or me getting four hours sleep a night. In the case of Rise of the Guardians I felt like a sleep because the story meanders like hell.
It’s an American animated fantasy-adventure film based on William Joyce‘s The Guardians of Childhood book series and The Man in the Moon short film by Joyce and Reel FX. Set 200 years after the books, it’s a story about the Guardians (Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman), trying to stop villainous Pitch from engulfing the world in darkness.
I know it’s not a film aimed at me but I just found it pretty long-winded in the first half. The animation is dazzling, no question about that, and some of the scenes are totally magical. But the WOW factor wasn’t enough in the absence of a proper story. The aforementioned mythical creatures get together to defeat a baddie. That’s it really. There’s a lot of stuff about how you have to believe in something and I suppose that’s what made me a bit peed off. I re-watched the remake of Miracle on 34th Street on TV recently and it made me really angry especially when Richard Attenborough dressed as Father Christmas says something like ‘if you can never take anything on faith then you’re destined for a life dominated by doubt and fear’. Preachy, syrupy, corny and just plain wrong! Yes Father Christmas is great for kids to believe in because it adds an extra thrill to the festivities. But actually HE DOES NOT EXIST! Are you telling me to believe in something which doesn’t exist so I don’t live in fear and doubt?!! Something like Father Christmas or erm…. God? Rise of the Guardians has strong undertones of that kind of garbage and I’m really getting sick of it. Sorry.
The voices were all OK but nothing special; by the way why do we ALWAYS have to have a Brit playing the villain (Jude Law)? That’s another thing I’m getting sick of. It wasn’t funny at any point, it wasn’t suspenseful, it wasn’t touching. In all, this is pretty standard, lazy stuff. It occasionally came to life in the confrontations between Jack Frost and Pitch but mostly it was a bore.
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The movie meanders too? When I saw Hotel Transylvania they had a short scene, which was preceded by a long introduction from Our Own Hugh. Long to the point of “Uh, what’s he talking about again?”