Rise of the Guardians (2012)

Saturday movie night with my best friend ended up being her choice out of my unseen movies pile! We love watching animation together and its been forever since we’ve actually sat down at home eating dinner together and just enjoy a movie.  Last movie we saw was in the theatres last year, Brave and it was totally awesome 😉 Rise of the Guardians was one that we believe we saw the preview of when we went to see Brave.

Director: Peter Ramsey

Voice Cast: Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Jude Law, Dakota Goyo

The Four Guardians have always taken care of the hopes and beliefs and happiness of all the kids around the world.  They consisted of a russian accent Santa Claus called North (Alec Baldwin), Easter Bunny called Bunny (Hugh Jackman), Tooth Fairy called Tooth (Isla Fisher) and Sandman called Sandy who doesn’t talk.  When North sees that the Boogeyman called Pitch, has come out of hiding and used his darkness to try to take over the Earth, he calls up the Guardians for a meeting.  When asking advice from the moon, they see that they are to summon a 5th Guardian, who is a mischievous Jack Frost (Chris Pine). This comes as a surprise to both Jack Frost and the Guardians.  As Pitch launches his plan to come out of hiding and destroy every child’s dreams and happiness, the Guardians along with Jack Frost needs to find a way to work together and figure out how to stop him before its too late.

Was 2012 the year of awesome animated flicks? I loved The Lorax (although there was a fair share that didn’t).  I absolutely adored Brave and now I had so much fun with Rise of the Guardians! I just totally blame the promotional team for this one.  It was so awesome but yet the trailers, not for one second, made me want to go see this.

This movie is definitely one that I found was really magical.  Its suitable for kids but gives the adults a good sense of adventure as well.  Its not dumb childish humor but actually rather witty dialogue.  Bringing in the mythical characters that a lot of children do (or adults have) believe in and setting them as the heroes of the story makes it very unique.  It also gives them a meaning as we are revealed that even our heroes before they become immortal have to earn their way to be who they are and each one had a life before this one.

All the characters were designed really well.  My best friend (and I) particularly loved how they made North have a Russian accent.  I thought that was really nifty and cool.  Easter Bunny was made all ninja style and he rocked the screen under Hugh Jackman’s voiceover. That makes sense since he has to jump and hop everywhere.  His interaction with everyone was most of the comic relief.  Chris Pine did a very good Jack Frost, although I almost didn’t even recognize his voice at first.  His story was the main focus throughout this flick so his character grew on me as it progressed.

This flick had Pitch as the villain. I think he did so amazing.  For one, he has one of the best voices in the business and its actually sad that I don’t recall him doing any voice work before.  He rarely does bad guys but somehow I felt he was a good level of evil to make everything work out.

One last thing that I really loved was the visuals.  The way the designed each of the “palaces” where the guardians lived were all very creative.  They each gave a beauty and imaginative.  The way the characters would use their magic and the colors they used were absolutely amazing.  I may have talked about this last but it was the big element that kept drawing me into the world of the Guardians.

This flick had a good amount of action to hold both children and adults but in no time did it feel that it was too intense or inappropriate for children at least.  They kept reminding us that we all have that child in us.  I’d recommend not only for a fun magical adventure but also that it carries a deeper meaning that we need to find our center.  No one will treat situations the same way but we all are unique and that gives us our advantage.

Daily Prompt/Tug of War: Fun Fiction or Pointless Lie?

I’ve been meaning to do a Daily Prompt for a while but this week has been really crazy…with the not using one letter..I was stuck staring at the screen all lunch hour and cursing that I didn’t carry a thesaurus with me ALL THE TIME.  Then the last few days, it was all topics that I could’ve answered with one paragraph.  Thursday’s topic I almost wanted to do but it would get a bit personal and I’m not one for jinxing a good situation, which I’m pretty happy with, although with seven days of nothing to do and $10,000 in my hands, I already know what I’d do it.  My 6 months plan could be immediate.  Doesn’t that sound vague but still quite sweet? In time, this will be revealed if all things go as planned.  You just have to stick around for a few more months.

Anyways, so we come to today (or yesterday) topic and I had almost deleted it, when afterwards, DJ Matticus launched the second Tug of War in his awesome kingdom, using exactly that topic.  I’m always up for some fun and games. 🙂 Last time I had blast even though I really went the going out on a crazy limb and (almost) everyone came around to tell me I was crazy and disagreeing…I love the response!

Here is the topic worded in two ways:

Daily Prompt style –>The Tooth Fairy (or Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus . . .): a fun and harmless fiction, or a pointless justification for lying to children?

Matticus Kingdom style –>Is telling your children stories about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus anImportant Part of Childhood/Growing Up or is it Not Important/Lying?

I’ve probably discussed this briefly before or at least I think I did.  *runs off to check past blogs* Okay, I was right..its right here! I’m not going to make you run to check it out unless you want to but I talked about it during my Christmas Marathon in the Polar Express review.

Here’s the excerpt from there:

Before that, I’d like to talk about the belief in Santa.  A child’s belief in Santa may be naive but it keeps that childhood happy spirit going.  It gives them hope and joy to find surprises.  Its magical how a little belief can make the little ones so happy.  Every year I watch my boyfriend’s niece and nephew open their presents.  When they were younger, they would have my boyfriend disguise as Santa Claus and play out the whole Santa Claus scene, now we just scurry them off into another room and have all the women make lots of noise to cover up while the guys move everything up and pretend that Santa visit. Its just amazing to see their faces light up when they walk into the living room and see a surprise pile of gifts for not only them but EVERYONE in the room.

So okay, maybe you can argue with me now and say, well, all the excitement is from the increased desire for gifts and thats why they look happy and amazed.  They get to open gifts and piles of them.  Which kid doesn’t want that? Its a dream come true, right?

Now, I want to talk about my mom.  I know you don’t care about my mom but hear me out.  My mom is one of those Chinese ladies whose been through a lot, just like a lot of other people.  At her age, she’s seen and learned from her past mistakes and experiences.  As I grew older, I started seeing my mom as being a very realistic person.  She doesn’t believe in fairy tales, the magic of Disney means nothing to her…life is about being happy but happiness is  in direct proportion with the amount of money we have.  Money may not equal happiness but it will equal comfort and being able to do most of the things one would like to do.  Its normal, I understand all that, even if I don’t really go by that with my life choices.  So you see, she is a very realistic woman.  But even though she knows its a bunch of baloney, she still brought me to see Santa every Christmas, even after I knew it wasn’t real either, she would still get me a little surprise something in the stocking hung on the fireplace.  I remember my eyes lighting up also because its the thought of surprising me and making me happy from my mom that made me feel amazing.  My mom actually did the whole thing with me: Easter had the local Easter egg hunts and chocolates, Hiding my tooth under my pillow and she’d actually save it in a jar and then put a dollar in its place.

All these characters, Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy are all just fun and harmless.  Its all about the power of belief, faith with a touch of imagination.   Every child should experience the naivety of being able to believe in innocent characters.  There is no harm if it brings a smile on their face, especially if it can be turned into another family event.  If I have kids in the future, I would do that also.  Let them learn to believe 🙂

What do you think? Is these characters harmless fun or just pointless lies? If you do write up a post, link back to DJ Matticus and help your team win and earn respect in The Matticus Kingdom 🙂 I have the link up there! But I put it here on his name also.  Of course, if you can link back to mine so I can read your entry if you’d like or leave me a comment.  Love to hear your thoughts!