'Rise of the Guardians' and 'Life of Pi' centerpieces of holiday movie feast

Three wide releases open today in anticipation of the long weekend after Thanksgiving tomorrow. With many generations coming together, this is the time for family-friendly movies to shine.

Rise of the Guardians (3,653 theatres) will be the leading pick for families with the youngest members. A kind of Avengers for childhood characters, the movie groups together Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny on the same mission. Critic Frank Lovece was disappointed. "I
want to love this
film," he laments, but it "just misses being magical." Although he predicts kids will "take to this like a toy on Christmas morning," Lovece is "left with the feeling that my own inner child would rather play
with the box it came in." Rise of the Guardians will have a tough time competing with the second weekend of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, which could earn $50 million even if it drops by two-thirds. Last year, The Muppets opened to $41 million over the five-day period, and Rise of the Guardians should be near that target. The opening may not matter quite as much, because the presence of the bearded man in the red suit should have this movie playing strong until Christmas morning.

The PG-rated Life of Pi (2,902 theatres) will be a great choice for families with older kids,
parents, and grandparents. The story of a boy floating on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger is a "superb, visually enthralling technical achievement," according to critic David Noh, but it doesn't quite overcome the "monotony" of having the characters be adrift for a long period of time. Fox is also betting that the spirituality of the work will bring together both coastal and Heartland audiences. Its opening should be half that of Rise of the Guardians, somewhere in the $20 million range. Along with Rise of the Guardians, Pi will release in the new sound format Dolby Atmos in select theatres.

Instead of Russians, North Koreans invade the U.S. in the remake of Red Dawn (2,679 theatres). The action flick is something of an individualists' dream: a high schooler, his Marine older brother, and his father help stave off the invaders from a rural outpost in Washington state. In contrast to the 1984 movie, the new one is "polished to a high
Hollywood gloss and stripped of nuance and moral ambiguity," says our critic Maitland McDonagh. Red Dawn and Life of Pi will both be landing in the $20 million range, though Life of Pi is likely to have a much more profitable run in weeks to come.

On Friday, Hitchcock (17 theatres) will makes its debut. Anthony Hopkins stars as Alfred Hitchcock in "a diverting movie nostalgia trip full of Hollywood period
atmosphere," which centers
on the director's making of Psycho. Although Hitchcock had some well-known flaws, this portrait is "more mischievous than accusatory, allowing audiences to
overlook the director’s many peccadillos and still relish this
larger-than-life figure," observes critic Kevin Lally. It also highlights the role his wife, Alma Reville, played in his success. Hitchcock will go up against a number of specialty pictures already in release, including Silver Linings Playbook, which is making an expansion to 367 theatres.

Also releasing on Friday is Rust and Bone, a melancholy French romance that does the impossible, turning the "unlikeliest of wormy subjects, characters and milieus into cinematic silk," praises critic Doris Toumarkine. A documentary sure to provoke outrage, The Central Park Five (3 theatres), will also roll out in theatres. The Ken Burns-led tale reveals the story of the five teens who were wrongly imprisoned for the rape of the Central Park jogger, a crime that turned into a lightning rod for a host of other issues plaguing New York City at the time.

On Monday, we'll see which of the movies paired best with Thanksgiving leftovers, and which releases have the strongest prospects during the frenetic period from Thanksgiving to Christmas.