Psycho's Movie Reviews #41: Rise Of The Guardians (2012)

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. The film tells a story about Guardians Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman, who enlist Jack Frost to stop the evil Pitch Black from engulfing the world in darkness in a fight of dreams.

The film was released in the United States on November 21, 2012. It grossed $306.9 million worldwide against a budget of $145 million but lost an estimated $83 million due to marketing and distribution costs. It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.

It was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures. Starting with The Croods (2013), 20th Century Fox would distribute DreamWorks' films until Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017).

Plot:

Jack Frost awakens from a frozen pond with amnesia. Upon realizing no one can see or hear him, he disappears. Three hundred years later, Jack, as the young Spirit of Winter, enjoys delivering snow days to school kids, but resents that they do not believe in him. At the North Pole, the Man in the Moon warns Nicholas St. North that Pitch Black is threatening the children of the world with his nightmares. He calls E. Aster Bunnymund/Bunny, the Sandman, and the Tooth Fairy to arms. They are told that Jack Frost has been chosen to be a new Guardian, and Bunny brings him to the North Pole. North explains to Jack that every Guardian has a center, something they are the Guardian of, but a call for help from Tooth's fairies ends the conversation.

Visiting Tooth's world, which resembles a palace in India, Jack learns that each and every baby tooth contains childhood memories of the children who lost it, Jack's teeth included. However, Pitch raids Tooth's home, kidnapping all of her subordinate tooth fairies except Baby Tooth and stealing all the teeth, thus preventing Tooth from sharing Jack's memories and weakening children's belief in her. In order to thwart Pitch's plan, the group decides to collect children's teeth. During their journey, a quarrel between North and Bunny awakens a boy, Jamie. Since he still believes, he can see everybody except for Jack. Pitch's nightmares then attack, provoking Sandy as the Guardian of Dreams. Jack tries to intervene, but Pitch apparently kills Sandy, who disappears.

As Easter approaches, the dejected Guardians gather in Bunny's home. With the unexpected aid of Jamie's little sister, Sophie, they begin the process of painting eggs for Easter. After Jack takes Sophie home, he is lured to Pitch's lair by a voice. Pitch taunts him with his memories and fear of non-belief, distracting him long enough for Pitch to destroy the eggs, causing children to stop believing in Easter and Bunny. With the Guardians' trust in him lost, a shamed Jack isolates himself in Antarctica, where Pitch tries to convince him to join his side. When Jack refuses, Pitch threatens to kill Baby Tooth unless Jack gives him his staff, the source of his magic. He agrees, but Pitch breaks Jack's staff and throws him down a chasm. Unlocking his memories inside his tooth, he learns that he was a mortal teenager who fell to his death in the frozen pond while saving his younger sister. Inspired, Jack repairs his staff and returns to the lair to rescue the kidnapped baby fairies.

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.

Production:

In 2005, William Joyce and Reel FX launched a joint venture, Aimesworth Amusements, to produce CG-animated feature films, one of which was set to be The Guardians of Childhood, based on Joyce's idea. The film was not realized, but they did create a short animated film, The Man in the Moon, directed by Joyce, which introduced the Guardians idea, and served as an inspiration for the film.

Early in 2008, Joyce sold the film rights to DreamWorks Animation, after the studio assured him it would respect his vision for the characters and that he would be involved with the creative process. In November 2009, it was revealed that DreamWorks had hired Peter Ramsey to make his feature debut as director of what was then titled The Guardians, and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to script, Lindsay-Abaire had previously worked with Joyce by co-writing the screenplay for Robots. Joyce acted as a co-director for the first few years, but left this position after the death of his daughter Mary Katherine, who died of a brain tumor. Joyce continued to work on the film only as an executive producer, while Ramsey took the helm solo as a full time director, making him the first African American to direct a big-budget CG animated film as well as making it one of the first Dreamworks films to have only one director instead of two and not have a co-director. As with some previous DreamWorks films, Guillermo del Toro came on board to join Joyce as an executive producer. Present almost from the beginning, he was able to help shape the story, character design, theme and structure of the film. He said he was proud that the filmmakers were making parts of the film "dark and moody and poetic," and expressed hope this might "set a different tone for family movies, for entertainment movies." The final title, Rise of the Guardians was announced in early 2011, along with the first cast.

Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who had already worked on the previous DreamWorks' film, How to Train Your Dragon, advised on the lighting to achieve its real look. He selected photographic references for color keys, and during the production gave notes on contrast, saturation, depth of field and light intensity. The film contains a lot of special effects, particularly the volumetric particles for depicting Sandman and Pitch. For this, DreamWorks Animation developed OpenVDB, a more efficient tool and format for manipulating and storing volume data, like smoke and other amorphous materials. OpenVDB had been already used on Puss in Boots and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, and was released in August 2012 for free as an open-source project with a hope to become an industry standard.

Although the film is based on the Joyce's book series, it contains differences from the books. The book series, begun in 2011, explains the origins of the characters, while the film takes place about 300 years after the books, and shows how the characters function in present time. Joyce explained, "Because I don't want people to read the book and then go see the movie and go, 'Oh, I like the book better,' and I also didn't want them to know what happens in the movie. And I also knew that during the progress of film production, a lot of things can change. So I wanted to have a sort of distance, so we were able to invoke the books and use them to help us figure out the world of the movie, but I didn't want them to be openly competitive to each other." The idea for the Guardians came from Joyce's daughter, who asked him "if he thought Santa Claus had ever met the Easter Bunny." The film includes a dedication to her, as well a song, "Still Dream," sung over the end credits.

Originally, the film was set to be released on November 2, 2012, but DreamWorks Animation pushed the film to November 21, 2012 to avoid competition with Pixar's upcoming film Monsters University, which in turn had been pushed to November 2, 2012 to avoid competition with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. Monsters University was then pushed to June 21, 2013, with Disney's Wreck-It Ralph taking its place.

Music/Score:

French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the original music for the film, which was released on November 13, 2012 by Varèse Sarabande. The score was recorded in London at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, with a choral contribution by London Voices. David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the lyrics for the end-credit song, "Still Dream," which was performed by soprano Renée Fleming. Stravinsky's Firebird Suite can also be heard during the scene where North first appears. This film marks the first time that a DreamWorks Animation film has not been composed by Hans Zimmer or a member of his Remote Control Productions family of composers (mainly John Powell, Henry Jackman, Lorne Balfe, Harry Gregson-Williams or his brother Rupert Gregson-Williams).

Release/Box Office:

Rise of the Guardians had its premiere on October 10, 2012, at The Mill Valley Film Festival in Mill Valley, California, followed by the international premiere at The International Rome Film Festival on November 13, 2012. Under distribution by Paramount Pictures, the film was released on November 21, 2012, in American theaters. Digitally re-mastered into IMAX 3D, it was shown in limited international and domestic IMAX theaters. It was the second film released in the firm Barco's Auro 11.1 3D audio format, after Red Tails. The film was also shown in Dolby Atmos, a surround sound technology introduced in 2012. Rise of the Guardians was the last DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Paramount, as DreamWorks has signed a five-year distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, which started in 2013 with The Croods.

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.

My Review:

Please take this review with a grain of salt (Depending on one's interpretation, what one person thinks may be regarded as silly or untrue by another.)

The Rise of the Guardians is a phenomenal movie that certainly can break through human apathy. The plot is amazing and really tugs at the heart-strings often. Events eventually lead into future events in the story, giving a good, well structured sequence. The audience is able to delve into the past of Jack Frost at certain parts, and from these moments that occurred, it builds a sort of skeleton for the main plot. The iconic members of the team (Guardians), are likely to be vivid in every child's mind, from the jolly Santa Claus to the Easter Bunny. Of course, Jack Frost is also here to freeze away our negative feelings that gnaw at our feet, and here to bring a new future of mischievous fun and happiness. I highly recommend people of all ages to come have a bit of snowball mania with Jack Frost and your childhood dreams! Be you a child or an adult or an elder, this movie is perfect for any occasion. Remember, every person has a child in them, just waiting to act on the right side of the human morality scale! Fear is portrayed as the worst, but kids have a special innocence that requires life's sugar(good elements) such as this movie, even if it may not be reflective of real life. Fantasy takes any shape, and it's always there in the heart of every person! Edit: (Don't worry, I'll try to shorten this part as much as possible so that you can read less to have more time to watch the movie!) I may have been overly enthusiastic when I wrote the first part of the review, but this is how you feel when you enjoy a movie so much that you turn a blind eye to its faults. Although I emphasize the movie's "good parts" excessively, this movie still has its faults. From what I saw in the movie, here are a few examples of some of its flaws: 1. While I did note that kids' sense of innocence should be preserved with feel-good scenes like the many found in the movie, the movie sort of emphasizes that fear is bad and it is not good for people to feel fear. Well, it is natural that every person feels scared at times, so it should be noted that one should reassure kids that there is nothing wrong with feeling scared in certain situations. Also, fear is not always something to panic and run from. It may even serve as motivation, if it is not taken in moderation. 2. The next one may sound a bit rude, but bear with me. Santa Claus does not look like most people's first image in their minds when they think of those words. Kids and even adults may be slightly bewildered by this new imagining of Santa Claus. Don't worry, it is still the same man in red who goes down chimneys and leaves presents under the Christmas tree. 3. Some scenes, upon additional evaluation, would be confusing for some people because the scene on the screen doesn't seem to have anything to do with what was happening a minute ago. I recall that I wrote that the scenes flow effortlessly into other scenes so that the audience knows exactly what is going on. Actually, this was mostly true for me because I like to read spoilers before I watch a movie. So, keep this in mind, but don't let my opinion spoil your fun!

This is the one of the BEST DreamWorks movies! It's on the same level as all the Kung Fu Panda series combined! (But of course, that is just my personal opinion). However, believe me when I say that this film is AMAZING and so well done with a flawless plot, vivid imagery through animation, and such great characters! This film literally changed my childhood when I first watched it and it has been my favorite movies since. Even now being 16 going on 17, I still love this movie and just remembered it out of the blue just recently and watched it again receiving the same joy I did the first several times I watched it when I was single digits. Please do watch this phenomenal masterpiece of a film that is one of DreamWorks best and had so much effort from the genius director who thought of this! Once again great movie, and especially very suitable for around the holidays!

In conclusion, I think this is a great movie for any age group, though kids may appreciate it a bit more than adults. I hope this review is helpful and that you enjoy the movie as much as I did! 10/10!!!!