Delayed Reaction: Rise of the Guardians

What I Guessed It Was About: One night, a boy goes to sleep with a tooth under his pillow. His parents go to replace that tooth and accidentally wake him. Caught in the act, the parents try to cover it up with a bedtime story about Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy about how you have to believe in them to get the gifts. Well played, parents.

How I Came Into It: This looked like one of Dreamworks Animation's darker movies. I don't mean thematically. It's not bright like Shrek or Madagascar. I can imagine the animators describing a shot as "cool" who previously would've aimed for "fun" or "bright". I'm not sure what effect that had on my viewing going in, however I was aware of it.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is a clever little movie. It reminded me of A League of Extraordinary Gentleman in the ways that it is a Public Domain All-Stars team. Russian Santa is an interesting direction and I really enjoyed the weirdness of the Tooth Fairy's tooth obsession.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: The further removed from childhood I am, the less I like when the message of a movie is that for something to exist, you have to believe in it. I get the reason for it, to perpetuate the Santa myth or others, but it's really a pretty bad message. It's only a small step away from "Only believe the facts that support your theory". That's the closest thing this has to an emotional core. It made me miss the jokes-first approach many other Dreamworks Pictures.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend