BEFORE: Well, I've been away for 2 weeks but it's been a very busy time. Most of my Christmas cards and CDs have gone out, about half of the requisite presents have been purchased (I'm hoping for some last-minute inspiration) and I've attended three office Christmas parties (two at companies I work for, I must be slipping). The only thing I haven't done yet is go on my annual "Festivus" walking tour of the NYC holiday markets, but really, there's almost no time for that. This past weekend I was sidelined by a snowstorm and a big blister on my foot, so the tour has been rescheduled for this coming Saturday, when the weather should be nicer.
But it's just one week until Christmas, and I've only got to slot in four films, and then two after Christmas to finish out the year. No problem, piece of cake, I got this. Linking from "Joyeux Noel", an actor from that film named Christopher Fulford was also in "Scoop" with Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Real Steel").
THE PLOT: When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.
AFTER: While Christmas movies come and go (usually around this time of year...) superhero movies are hot hot HOT! And essentially, that's what this is, a superhero movie where the superheroes are classic children's characters all known for sneaking around at night without being seen. That's what unites Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, other than the fact that they're all metaphors for different aspects of childhood.
So somebody got the idea to do a superhero spin on these characters, putting them together in a "Justice League" sort of organization, a type of an X-Men-ification if you will. In fact the basic plot follows the open of the first "X-Men" film quite closely, with an amnesiac Jack Frost in the Wolverine role, ambling through the countryside until he meets the other members of the team. After that Jack sort of fills the "Iceman" role from the X-Men, and the Easter Bunny takes over more of the Wolverine role (I don't think it's a coincidence that E.B. is voiced by Hugh Jackman...so I see what you did there...). The Tooth Fairy, as a goddess-type is sort of Storm-like, though I suppose the relatively new X-Men character Pixie is a closer analogue. And Santa Claus is big, imposing and high-tech, so he's a bit of Professor X meets Magneto meets Bruce Wayne.
The coincidences / comic-book ripoffs continue - Santa's got a big holographic map of the globe that highlights the children who truly believe, and it looks an awful lot like the X-Men's Cerebro device. The high-tech sleigh leaves Santa's workshop through a tunnel that calls to mind the way the Batmobile leaves the Batcave, and so on. The villain, Pitch (aka the Boogeyman), seems like a cross between Marvel's Nightmare character and DC/Vertigo's Sandman (Morpheus). In fact, it's hard to find any element of this film that doesn't call to mind something similar from Marvel, DC or Vertigo.
ASIDE: The Sandman seen in this film is, however, not directly based on the Vertigo Sandman. This one's more of a happy roly-poly sort, who is non-voiced by Teller from the comedy/magic duo Penn & Teller (I assume - though this doesn't really make sense, it's a fun factoid I just made up.) End of ASIDE.
That being said, if I compare this film to your average comic-book team-up, or a film like, say "The Avengers", there are a few places where it seems to fall short. What, exactly, is the villain's plan to take over the world - how is he going to accomplish this? This seemed very nebulous here, and his plan involved getting kids to fear him, but NOT believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny. Which seems a bit self-defeatist, because if kids mature and learn to not believe in fairy stories, that could also involve him, because he's perceived as a similarly imaginary character. It's all or nothing with the fairy tales - they're either all true, or all fantasy. The more exact elements of his plan seem to involve turning dream horses into night mares (get it?) but I'm not seeing his endgame here. Once all the kids in the world are scared of the Boogeyman - then what? He signs a book deal and stars in a TV biopic?
But, on the upside, it's a step toward advancing/updating the Santa Claus mythos, which quite honestly sometimes seems very mired in the past. How many homes even HAVE a working chimney these days, thanks to central heating? And what kid hasn't done the math to try and calculate the time it would take Santa to visit EVERY home on Christmas Eve, and determined that even if you discount the non-Christian households, it still seems a tall order for him to get into each house, deliver gifts, eat cookies, drink milk, shout "Ho Ho Ho!" and go back up the chimney in under 0.00001 seconds? I know, I know, time zones, magic reindeer and the curvature of the earth - and then Lois Lane comes back to life for good measure. My kid would be questioning the whole thing from the get-go, which is one more reason why I don't have a kid.
Recent debate over the exact location of the North Pole seems to place it in Canadian territory - but Santa Claus is Russian here for some reason, wielding sabers and wearing a Cossack-style hat. I'm guessing the ability of the voice actor to do a Russian accent and an inability to speak in a Canadian style had a lot to do with that. And the recent Fox News report about Santa Claus' race (Spoiler alert: He's WHITE) sort of demonstrated the ability that myths have to change over time. The original Saint Nicholas was Greek, but lived in a section of the world that is now Turkey, so he probably was more brown than some people today might be comfortable with. (Same goes for Jesus, despite the whiteness of his skin as depicted in most Renaissance artwork, people seem to forget that he was born in Israel, so was probably more of an olive-skinned gentleman.)
NITPICK POINT: On the same track as the Fox News "Christmas racism" scandal, despite a nod to the European version of the Tooth Fairy (Ratoncito Perez), this film is mostly based on American versions of these characters - how do these characters play overseas? We are shown Santa and the Easter Bunny visiting desert huts and Chinese pagodas, but are they even known in those regions? If a country doesn't celebrate Easter, why would they know the Easter Bunny? And putting kids' teeth under their pillows, is that even a thing in most other countries? I'll research when I have some more time...
NITPICK POINT #2: It's a valiant effort to come up with a reason WHY the Tooth Fairy collects teeth, even those with a little bit of gum attached, but still...eww. The whole practice seems rather barbaric. I like to challenge my friends with small kids by asking them what they're going to tell their kids about Santa, maybe I need to start asking them how they're going to handle the whole Tooth Fairy thing too - because that's just the kind of skutch I am.
But if the stories change over time, who's to say they shouldn't? Why shouldn't Santa have a high-tech workshop with high-speed internet access and lots of flashing lights, dials and switches? Why wouldn't he use a roomful of servers to keep track of the naughtiness of millions, if not billions, of children? Why can't he be Russian, or Canadian, or Hispanic, or look different to everyone who (almost) sees him? Why does the magic automatically stop when it comes to Santa's skin color?
Of course, there are many different forms of magic. I saw a recent news report where a plane full of kids who had battled cancer were taken on a plane ride to the North Pole (and I'm resisting the use of sarcastic quotation marks here...). The windows of the plane needed to be kept closed the entire time, because you can't risk kids seeing how the magic happens, and at the end of the plane ride, the kids landed at Santa's Workshop, which looked exactly like they hoped it would, and nothing at all like hangar B-3 at L.A.X. And somehow the same reporters who saw the plane take-off also found a way to report from the North Pole itself - again, it's all part of the magic.
I may be getting older and finding myself to be more and more cynical about Christmas tales, but I'm not one to reveal how magic tricks are done. Not to sick KIDS, anyway. Jeez, is that what you think of me? I thought we had a real relationship here, and then you pull this on me...
Also starring the voices of Chris Pine (last seen in "Star Trek Into Darkness"), Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Rock of Ages"), Jude Law (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Isla Fisher.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Russian composers
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