Rise of the Guardians

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In-The-Machine's avatar
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If it weren't for the fact that I'm still blown away by how hard Wreck-It Ralph hit it out of the park, I'd be a lot angrier at how one of the only animated films I was looking forward to in theaters this season ended up falling far flat of my expectations. I was looking forward to ROTG far longer than most films this year, and frankly, even if you didn't consider the hype, it was still fairly borderline mediocre.
The plot is basically about five mythical characters from folklore come together to use their unique abilities to save the day in a fashion reminiscent of the Avengers in order to fight darkness that threatens to cover the globe and extinguish the hopes of children. The premise of ROTG seems like it would be a fantastic idea for a clever, adventurous and magical animated family film, but instead it was rushed, choppy, and, frankly, the film felt like it should have been called Rise of the Jackians considering that he was the only character in the film that had any sort of development, backstory, and was the closest thing thing to a 'dynamic' character while everyone else's development was solidly non-existent to zero. It seemed less about the Guardians interacting with each other as a team and more about how each of them interacted with Jack. and And even then with Jack, they still mushed it up and half-assed his character development.

In my opinion, the film's biggest flaw was the plot's pacing. The characters spent most of the film running around and jumping from place to place and a part of me wonders how many hands this script got passed around to in order for it to become a cluttered mess that barely leaves time for anything substantial or genuinely exploratory.

Voice-wise, I thought Jude Law and Isla Fisher did good jobs with Pitch and Tooth, respectively. But Alec Baldwin's role could probably have done to someone with an actual Eastern European accent (especially since Baldwin doesn't do anything extra that lends itself to the part other than fake an accent he clearly doesn't have). And while Chris Pine didn't necessarily do a bad job, it felt weird to watch a grown man do the voice of a supposedly 14-year-old boy.
Voices aside, Tooth was actually the closest thing I had to a character favorite while Bunnymund just annoyed me. It didn't help that he was supposed to be the wise-cracking, "snarky" tough-guy character of the group but he just...wasn't even remotely funny or amusing.
Additionally, despite supposedly being huge rivals, Santa and Pitch don't even have a showdown (and Santa was more of a jovial goofy guy than the actual badass I assumed he was going to be). And Pitch wasn't as serious as I thought he'd be, either as his credibility as a villain faltered when he kept getting his ass kicked in really slapstick ways by the Sandman.

Honestly, what sting the most is the fact I think this film could have had a lot of potential, but the final product was just so immensely lackluster and watered down from what it could have been had the script been handled more capably. It's not the worst animated film I've seen, but for DreamWorks, this was definitely one of their more mediocre films. Frankly, I'm surprised this film managed to score even a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I'm not surprised at the fact the film isn't performing as well as some thought it would.

Overall: 5.5/10
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CreepySilverWolf's avatar
I agree that the plot was a bit flat in parts but I did find the Easter Bunny to be amusing. Probably due to the fact that a lot of Australian Slang which you have to have heard before to make much sense.