My Bittersweet Cafe: The Rise of the Guardians

Frankly, I watched the movie because of Dream Works' rendition of Jack Frost. White-haired sexy dude with beautiful grey-blue sparkly eyes who has the awesome power of ice and levitation. Not bad. And I wasn't surprised when many agreed that Jack Frost was enough reason to watch the movie. He didn't disappoint either, he had so much screen time throughout the movie that there's so much reason to stare into a trance.

Other than him, the CGI was wonderfully rendered, very reminiscent to those videogames I once played. Reminded me of Kingdom Hearts, actually. How I miss those days...so nostalgic was the graphics that it was just the right adventure-fantasy-animation fix I needed.

Basically, the story is for kids because I didn't relate much to it...nor basically put in much thought to figure out. Okay, it's about finding one's core purpose...which I highly doubt kids can relate to either. Throwing in a question about one's purpose in life and relating it to a cute mystical being threw me off the meaning of the story, I was there for the action and lots of Jack Frost.

To actually defend what I said, half-way through the movie the kids in the theater had gotten annoyingly noisy and restless because they wanted less talk, more action! Personally, I found the first fight between Pitch, Sandman, and Jack more appealing than the slapstick one in the end. Fast-paced and enough violence for the kids!

The other characters weren't so bad either: a mime-badass Sandman, a Russian-inspired Santa with tattoos, an out-back Australian Easter Bunny who seemed to have had it rough, a frisky hummingbird-humanoid Tooth Fairy, and a Tim Burton-inspired-Cullen-eyed-boogeyman antagonist named Pitch. I say that's A+ for the concept...if only the mermaids and the chupacabras made cameo appearances then the fantasy-ness of it all would have been a level higher.

The children, those who played a role in the movie, were the ones you'd find in old family cartoons because they were pretty helpless and stupid--I mean yes, they did save the guardians because they overcame their fears in the end (oops! spoiler!) How easily they gave up on believing in everything because they couldn't find the eggs on Easter was a WTF moment...can't blame them though...HA...kids.

Another notable detail and the lack of it made think that this movie was made to be designed as a game--I think they have a game out on Xbox now--were the realms of the guardians...so action-adventure-RPG-like! I barely got to see each of the worlds in the movie though. Who knew that the Easter Bunny lives in an Aztec ruin?

Now, I know it's for kids...so I was disappointed that the most Tooth Fairy and Jack could do is hug, "accidentally." I was actually expecting that Tooth's feathers would slowly shed off to reveal her human face as kids lost faith in her bribing skills in the near end. How cute would it had been if they developed the romance a little further? A forbidden love between two powerful guardians? Kids? No? Fine...I'll wait for Part 2.