ElliesWonder
Don't let the cover picture lead you wrong. That is not a cute cartoon, it is an old puppet film. For personal reason, I have strong Pupaphobia, it is the fear of puppets and dolls. Pupaphobia has an uncanny valley theory, is a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object's resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object. To me, I couldn't sleep with my stuffed animal when I was a baby because I thought their eyes reflected light at night, looked like they are staring at me. So even I still love stuffed toys as an adult, I still put my favorite in the living room, not my bedroom.I thought this movie is a kid version of Rise of the Guardians, but it turns out an old creepy puppet film, especially at night, can you imagine? Rise Of the Guardians
The last piece Dreamworks worked with Paramount, but its box office was quite low. I would say that was an underrated movie because I found it later after years and was fun to watch, and its CGI wasn't bad at all.
TheMovieDoctorful
Let me tell you something...I LOVE Rankin Bass. And who doesn't? Rankin Bass is as much a part of my childhood as Disney, Dreamworks or Aardman. I don't know a single person who hasn't at least seen ONE of their Christmas specials, be it Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman or any of their half dozen Santa Claus related films starring Mickey Rooney. If Disney is the king of traditional animation, then Rankin Bass is the undisputed master of the Christmas special. But, unfortunately, nobody is perfect, and "Jack Frost" has to be the prime example of the imperfection of Rankin Bass. Not only is it their worst movie by far, it's one of the worst Christmas specials period."Jack Frost" is a Holiday special with absolutely NO charm whatsoever. I can't think of a single nice thing to say about it. The story feels both rushed and all over the place at the same time, featuring a problem that's resolved in about 5 seconds and constantly cuts from flashback to present time to make the story seem longer than it is. It's a cheap tactic, but not at all surprising given the cheap nature of the movie as a whole.The characters are even worse. Every character in this movie is either totally incompetent, a selfish asshole or painfully unfunny. Jack Frost is an idiot who is incapable of performing even the simplest tasks right, Snip is also an idiot who is incapable of performing even the simplest tasks right, Pardon-Me-Pete is not only horribly unfunny but completely unnecessary to anything in the movie, Kubla Krause is pretty much Diet Burgermeister from "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town", Elisa is a selfish empty-headed flower pot whose idea of love is completely superficial and Sir Ravenal Rightfellow is one of the most uninteresting, uncharming Mary Sues I have seen in all of fiction. And yes, as you could guess, Elisa and Rightfellow hit it off and end up marrying despite knowing literally nothing about each others personality or character beyond being beautiful. Great lesson for kids, especially in a Christmas movie. Now for the voice acting...It's god awful. But, that being said, it's a special kind of god awful. Pretty much every other Rankin Bass movie I can think of despite whatever faults they may have had did have pretty top tier voice acting that added a lot of charm and even emotional weight to the movie. There are two kinds of performances in this movie; dubbing as wooden as the film's puppets and dubbing so bad that you actually wonder if the voice actors even understand what they are saying. I might expect something like that from a Video Brinquedo film, but NEVER from Rankin Bass.And the musical numbers...My GOD the musical numbers. The musical numbers in this movie are terrible in every way. They're uncreative/unthought out, they come out of nowhere, and they wreck what very little momentum and energy the film has going for it. The film's wretched songs were without a doubt the final nail in the coffin for this abomination."Jack Frost" is one of the worst Christmas specials I have ever sat through and easily the worst Rankin Bass movie ever made. The story is awful, the voice acting is pathetic, the characters are unlikable and the songs...My God, the songs. There is truly nothing redeeming about this movie, and the entire time watching it I just sat in my couch with an angry look on my face.
ExplorerDS6789
This is the story of Jack Frost. You've probably heard of him: guy who turns fall to winter. Well there was a time when he wanted to be human, and for a brief period, he was. Interesting story that, and it's told by Pardon-Me Pete, celebrity groundhog. How does he figure into all this? Wait and see. So the story really begins in a poor town called January Junction. The folks are poor because the evil ruler, Kubla Krouse. This man is so petty he'll even steal a kaputnik (which has less value than a penny) from someone who has nothing else. However, the town is only broke 9 months out of the year, because come winter, they saw icicles into coins, which is an accepted currency...and yet, they still seem dirt poor. But anyway, these folks love winter and ice, courtesy of Jack Frost. There's one person in particular who is quite fond of the little fellow. This would be Elisa, a pretty girl and a dreamer with a monster crush on ol' Jackie Frost, and it would appear the feeling was mutual, so Jack goes back to Winterland and tells Father Winter that he wants to be human. It seems all these years of being around the people down there and always unable to interact has been making him yearn for something more. Father Winter reluctantly grants his request, but only until the first day of Spring, and if he accumulates a house, a horse, gold and a wife, the bare necessities of life, he will be human forever. And so Jack becomes human and sails down to earth... um, shouldn't he have waited until he landed to become human? What if he fell too fast and died on impact? Well, he didn't, and as luck would have it, he ran into Elisa at the frozen lake and introduces himself as Jack Snip, the tailor. Snip coming from his friend of the same name who makes snowflakes and gave him a pair of his scissors as a keepsake. Elisa brings her new friend home for dinner, and instantly, he wants to seek out a house and all that, but Mama and Papa inform him that all the houses, horses and gold are owned by Kubla Krouse, and he wasn't about to give any of them up. The obvious solution: overthrow him.Ol' Kubla was a lonely man, as his original kingdom had skipped out on him, so all he had for company were mechanical beings he'd made himself: iron horse Klaimstomper, a clockwork orang...er, butler, and Dommy, a dummy. He's still a jerk though and deserves what he'll ultimately get. Now, to keep Jack out of harms' way so he doesn't screw up royally, Father Winter makes Snip and Holly, a snow gypsy, human as well to keep an eye on him. They track Jack down to Mama and Papa's house. Papa sees Holly and says, "what is she, an almost?" Um, what the heck is an almost? and Snip introduces himself as Fernando Leonardi Kratski Dopopolopolis... worst name I've ever heard. Come next morning, Jack wanted to make good his threat to overthrow Kubla...but couldn't climb the icy mountain. Now that he's human, ice is no longer his friend. As if things weren't already a mess for him, into Jack's tailor shop comes the dashing, handsome Sir Ravenaugh Rightfellow (forboding name), looking for someone to mend his cape. Seems Elisa took quite a shine to Mr. Right...fellow. Next day was Christmas, and the household exchanged the same gift: a dream present, whatever you think it is, it is. I guess those ice coins ran out sooner than expected. They skipped Snip and Holly, for some reason too. So, Sir Rightfellow continues to put the moves on Elisa, and then she finds herself kidnapped by Kubla Krouse! Her rescuers set out instantly. The knight slays his mechanical warriors, while Jack, Snip and Holly find themselves captured. Only thing to do now was for Jack to give up his humanity and become frosty again to snow in Kubla and stop him from unleashing a devastating garrison of mechanical knights onto January Junction, and it worked. Until February, when the end of winter would be determined by a groundhog of all things. Jack creates a shadow to scare it off, and thus, Groundhog Day is born. But by March, winter had to end, and a very patient Kubla was ready for his attack. He's knocked unconscious by a falling roof, and clever Jack, now human again, imitates Dommy to get the knights to fall off a steep slope. Kubla charges at Jack, only to jump out the window and get blown away by Father Winter to a presumable death. So Jack moves into Kubla's castle and takes his horse and gold as his own, and now for a wife. Sadly, he's too late. Elisa is marrying Sir Rightfellow, and so, broken hearted, Jack Frost returns to the clouds. So the moral of our story is: women! Whatcha gonna do? Now, something doesn't make sense: during the scene of Jack Frost creating the groundhog's shadow to scare it, it's obviously Pete in the scene, and in the present day, he says he's been letting Jack scare him ever since. Now unless Pete is 800 years old, I don't see how that's possible. I think he should have said, "and we've been letting him scare us to this very day," since there are more groundhogs in the world besides him. But anyway, Jack Frost is a very well done holiday special, both for Christmas and Groundhog Day. Terrific voice acting by Robert Morse, Don Messick, Debra Clinger, Larry Storch, and of course Paul Frees, as well as Buddy Hackett as our narrator. While not one of Rankin/Bass' masterpieces, it's still fun and entertaining. I say, check it out.
