I
first met Bill Joyce at the Stuttgart Animation Festival with his buddy Brandon
Oldenburg, where they were presenting “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris
Lessmore”, which eventually won the Oscar for best animated short that
year. You also may know him from
his other films, “Robots” and “Meet the Robinsons”. I've just seen his new film
“The Rise of the Guardians”, which will be released by Dreamworks later this
month.
What
a tour de force! Amazing story, great character design and fantastic animation!
It's a story about children's fantasy characters like the Easter Bunny, Santa
Claus, The Tooth Fairy, Sandman and Jack Frost, as they fight the evil
nightmare goblin.
According
to the director, Jeffrey Katzenberg left his influence off the production of
the film and that’s why it’s such a great film. If I have one complaint about it, it's that for a
roller-coaster ride of a film, there are a few too many ups and downs on the
coaster. But otherwise, it's full
of great fun and fantasy.
Tell
your friends to go see it – I give it an “A”.
Wish I could agree. It doesn't live up to the quality of other recent Dreamworks films. The female characters and their dialogue is an embarrassment in the 21st century. One female can only giggle throughout the film and never has a face that goes to a natural rest; there's always the smile. Likewise the character development for males is sadly lacking. The best part of the film are two voices - Jude Law and Alec Baldwin. They offer the animators real characters to work with. It's not in the writing. The film also looks like the Shrek films; awful design. I'd be hard pressed to give it a C-
ReplyDeleteGood to know you liked it, Bill. I'll have to see it. Were their any similarities between Rise Of The Guardians and your Santa The Fascist Years?
ReplyDeleteJame M