Rise of the Guardians

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated action fantasy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by Peter Ramsey (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood and the short film The Man in the Moon by William Joyce. It stars Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman.

Plot
Generation after generation, immortal Guardians like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy protect the world's children from darkness and despair. However, an evil boogeyman named Pitch Black schemes to overthrow the Guardians by obliterating children's belief in them. It falls to a winter sprite named Jack Frost to thwart Pitch's plans and save the Guardians from destruction.

Good Qualities

 * 1) First means first, the overall idea of the film, that being childhood icons (i.e., Jack Frost, Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Sandman, The Easter Bunny) coming together to stop another the Boogeyman, another childhood icon who instead represents fear rather that joy is an amazing concept for a film. As it's very imaginative and original concept that, unlike many others, hasn't been used much in media. And on top of just being an incredible idea, what really seals it is the fact that in this movie, it also comes with an excellent execution.
 * 2) Absolutely phenomenal and beautiful animation which moves beautifully and gives off a very majestic vibe that perfectly suits the movie itself.
 * 3) Spectacular voice acting, especially from actors like Chris Pine as Jack (who also plays James T. Kirk from Star Trek, Steve Trevor from Wonder Woman (2017), and Peter Parker/Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Alec Baldwin as Nicholas St. North (who also plays Adam Maitland from Beetlejuice, Alan Hunley from Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Jack Ryan from The Hunt for Red October, and Captain Ellerby from The Departed), Hugh Jackman as E. Aster Bunnymund (who also plays Gabriel Van Helsing from Van Helsing, Wolverine from X-Men, and Charlie Kenton from Real Steel), Isla Fisher as Toothiana (who plays Dr. Mary Lou Larue from Horton Hears a Who!, Henley Reeves from Now You See Me, and Beans from Rango), and Jude Law as Pitch Black (who also plays Mr, Cabret from Hugo, Gigolo Joe from A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and Lemony Snicket from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events). The voice actors absolutely nailed their vocal performances.
 * 4) Hilarious moments like the sleigh's reveal from Jack's adamant refusal to immediate change of heart, Bunny's introduction, the Guardians collecting the teeth of Tooth Fairy's helpers after they're captured by Pitch (by making a game of it by trying to one up one another), Jack trying to return Sophie back to her bed (only for her to not stop grabbing his neck), and Jamie waking up to see all the Guardians (save Jack Frost) in his room.
 * 5) Jack's identity crisis throughout the film is very intriguing and emotionally-gripping, getting the audience invested in the story and longing to see him find out who he is and been seen by human children.
 * 6) The film has a genuinely large amount of sweet and heartwarming scenes, including (but not limited to) Jack saving his sister, Sandman's return, and North's heart-to-heart with Jack.
 * 7) Amazing color palette, especially with the character designs and backgrounds.
 * 8) The interpretation of many of the childhood icons are some of the best ones in film.
 * 9) * Nicholas St. North is arguably one of the best Santas in any film, as he has giant snow beasts to build his toys rather than elves (although they end up being pretty pointless to the film and it's plot as mentioned in BQ# 4). He has a Russian accent/culture persona and a fierce, demanding and impulsive personality. He also serves as the leader of the Guardians, and the Guardian of Wonder
 * 10) * E. Aster Bunnymund is a very original incarnation of the Easter Bunny (especially considering how unlike Santa, there isn't an exact personality established for the Easter Bunny, nor the other guardians in the film), as he's portrayed here as being Australian as well as a ninjitsu master. The Guardian of Hope, he's mainly cynical and short-tempered and had a dislike of Jack at first, but he still doesn't hesitate to jump into action as soon as he sees the real danger, as he genuinely cares about Easter and the hopes of children and later grows to accept Jack as part of the Guardians.
 * 11) * Toothiana is also a great Tooth Fairy incarnation, as she's an eccentric human/hummingbird hybrid who stores the teeth she collects in golden lockboxes in order to preserve the memories of the childhoods of the children of said teeth. The Guardian of Memories, she has a generally upbeat and caring personality, being the most cheerful of the Guardians (possibly excluding Jack).
 * 12) * The Sandman (or Sanderson Mansnoozie) is mute and therefore communicates via sand sculptures he telekinetically constructs with his mind rather than with words or dialogue. The Guardian of Dreams, he's the oldest of the Guardians, being the first of them to be chosen by the Man in the Moon.
 * 13) * As for Jack Frost, the main protagonist of the film, he has a free-spirited and abrasive personality. And throughout the film, he goes from an incorrigible, lonely trickster who prefers having fun rather than being a Guardian to a more responsible, brave person (although he is still a trickster).
 * 14) Fantastic and majestic soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat. It, like the animation, fits the fantastic atmosphere the movie sets up perfectly.
 * 15) The Ending is Amazing and Satisfying: Due to Pitch, every child in the world except Jamie disbelieves, drastically weakening the Guardians. Finding Jamie's belief wavering, Jack makes it snow in his room, renewing Jamie's belief and letting him become the first person to ever believe in and see Jack. They gather the boy's friends, whose renewed belief bolsters their fight against Pitch. He threatens them, but their dreams prove stronger than his nightmares, resulting in Sandy's resurrection and the Guardians reuniting. Defeated and no longer believed in, Pitch tries to retreat, but his nightmares, sensing his own fears, turn on him and drag him to the underworld. Afterward, Jamie and his friends bid goodbye to the Guardians as Jack accepts his place as the Guardian of Fun.
 * 16) Good dialogue such as: "Merry Christmas! Happy Easter! and Don't forget to floss!"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Pitch Black is a rather generic and bland villain with an uninteresting motive and a really boring design, especially for a dark lord.
 * 2) The title is kinda generic and can easily cause the film to be mistaken for another one with a similar title. An event that actually happened 3 times.
 * 3) The designs for the human characters look pretty uncanny.
 * 4) The Elves are pointless characters as it is revealed that the yetis are making the toys while making the Elves believe they can make them and they don't have any purpose throughout thee film.
 * 5) The film became a GIGANTIC box office bomb, result the partnership with Paramount and DreamWorks to be finished.

Reception
Rise of the Guardians received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and audiences upon it's release. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 75% based on 161 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A sort of Avengers for the elementary school set, Rise of the Guardians is wonderfully animated and briskly paced, but it's only so-so in the storytelling department." Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 58 based on 37 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Box Office
Rise of the Guardians grossed $103.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $203.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $306.9 million.

In North America, the film opened to $32.3 million over its extended five-day weekend, and with $23.8 million over the three-day weekend, it reached fourth place behind The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Skyfall, and Lincoln. The film's opening was the lowest debut for a DreamWorks Animation film since Flushed Away. While the film did gross more than double of its $145 million budget, it still did not turn a profit for DreamWorks Animation due to its high production and marketing costs, forcing the studio to take an $83 million write-down. This marked the first time that the studio had lost money on an animated film since Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. As a result of this combined with other factors, in February 2013, the studio announced it was laying off 350 employees as part of a company-wide restructuring.

Trivia

 * This was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures, before their films started to be distributed by Fox for five years.
 * Aside from the Guardians and Pitch, none of the adult characters' faces are clearly seen.
 * At the beginning of the movie, Jack Frost walks through a Colonial American village. In the background, the folk song village musicians are playing is called "Kempe's Jig." This was a popular early eighteenth century English dance song, named in honor of William Kempe, a famous sixteenth century English comic stage actor, whose work influenced modern comedic acting, stand-up comedy, and improvisational comic skits.
 * The film takes place some 300 years after the source novels.
 * At one point, the movie theatre plays the wrong guardians movie for three times in the row, during the screenings of Guardians of the Galaxy.
 * When Sandy is signaling everyone to look at the Man in the Moon, a crescent moon appears above his head. This is otherwise known as the DreamWorks Animation logo.

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