From May 13, 2013
SCORE: B-/C+
I was first told about this movie by a friend who works for Dreamworks back in 2009 when he gave me a tour of the Dreamworks campus in Glendale. I saw a painting of Sandman over a city at night as well as some sketches of the Easter Bunny. Jeff played up how amazing the movie would be... unfortunately the finished film sort of fell flat for me (my favorite Dreamworks movie is still "Kung Fu Panda". Beautiful, funny film).
The design in this film is beautiful and ornate... but the story just isn't there. Something seemed lackluster. Perhaps that's why the studio had to layoff 350 people after it came out. Even though it made money (it cost $145 mill but made $303 mill), the cost of advertising made the studio lose $83 million. Damn. It was a decent movie. It wasn't THAT bad.
PRO:
• I initially thought that Jack Frost, the main character, was voiced by John Cusack, but it turns out that it's "Star Trek"s Chris Pine. Just as cool.
• I liked the Eastern European Santa Claus (or "North" as he's called in this film) as well as the European architecture in his home.
• I liked the short, mute, triangular elves and the mute yetis (they looked like Talz from Star Warshttp://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Talz).
• I like the mute Sandman (there sure are a lot of mute characters in this movie), but to me, the Sandman
• looks like the one from the Neil Gaiman comic books. And that version looks a lot more like Pitch, the bad guy from this film.
• I like that they call the Man in the Moon "Manny" and that they treat him sort of like a deity.
• I liked that the reindeer looked almost like clydesdales.
• Alec Baldwin did a good job as the voice of Santa Claus / North.
BOTH PRO & CON:
• The design in this film is beautiful and ornate... but the story just isn't there.
• Jack Frost's new friends turn on him unbelievably quick at one point. But this is followed by a pretty good scene between Jack and Pitch, the villain.
CON:
• Way too many unnecessary 360 degree swoops around rooms for my liking.
• I don't care for the villain having an English accent. It seems cliche. I kept thinking, "Why is Voldemort in this movie?"
• I have no idea why the Easter Bunny has an Australian accent (especially since Australia currently has a big problem with rabbits from the US).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia
• The Easter Bunny has stone egg warriors? Ugh.
