Review 183: Rise of the Guardians
Based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood and The Man in the Moon short film by William Joyce, Jack Frost (Chris Pine) is a carefree boy who has no responsibilities in the world aside from bringing winter wherever he goes. But everything changes when Pitch (Jude Law), the Nightmare King, begins his plan to engulf the world in Darkness. The Guardians, Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) and the Sandman enlist Jack to join their group to stop Pitch and protect the children of the world.
The plot you could say is Dreamworks' The Avengers, it brings all these childhood folktail characters to fight off this dark force in a fast paced, action packed adventure full of humour and heart.
Part of the charm of this film is how it shows that these characters actually protect the children and acts as their guardian angles. The Avengers works better on a grand scale because all the characters were introduced in their own "solo" film while Rise of the Guardians is some what smaller scale and more to the point due to the titular heroes being better known than some B list superheroes.
The underlying theme of this film is that as children grow older they become more cynical and as they do they have to rediscover their childhood wonderment as well as retain that youthfulness that's inside all of us where we get inspired by things and use our imagination
Director Peter Ramsey's animation direction is sharp and unobustrive, the score by Alexandre Desplat is beautifully spectacular, the animation is gorgeous (it has got to be one of Dreamworks' best looking film, the attention detail is all marvellous and the colours are so warm and rich), the production design is mindblowing (Santa's hut, the Tooth fairy's lair and the Easter Bunnies domain all have very visually interesting and distinct looks), the character design is masterful (the created all these mythical creatures), there are some great scenes of excitement (there's a scene were Jack Frost creates a snow day for the children of a small town a scene where he create an ice track while a boy called Jamie (Dakota Goyo) rides on a sled having a wild time). the humour is delightful (Jack Frost's powers in particular are used as the source of some great visual jokes). The action set peices are larger than life, the sound effects are great and the ending was superb.
The whole voice cast was wonderful, normally in animation, the actor serves as the inspiration for the character and Rise of the Guardians is no exception as they cast some talented A-List actors who fit their parts very well.
Chris Pine is brilliant as Jack Frost.
Jack Frost is the centre of the film, he's the character the audience can identify with and follow on this grand adventure.
At the beginning of the film he's this being who exists like James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life with no memory of his past life and where no children remember him and the film does a really good job of building him up as a sympathetic likeable character.
His arc throughout the film is wonderfully uplifting as we see him go from being an irresponsible but lonely trickster who relishes in having fun and leading a carefree life to a responsible guardian who finds himself amongst wiliest also retaining his mischievous, youthful nature.
Alec Baldwin is fabulously hysterical as Nicholas St. North/Santa Clause,
Hugh Jackman is wonderful as the E. Aster Bunnymund/Easter Bunny
Isla Fisher is cooky as the Tooth Fairy. Her infectiously cooky energy and motherly like tones
Jude Law was an intimidating villain Pitch aka The Boogeyman. Pitch literally lives off of children's fears and nightmares, they're his oxygen and that makes him quite scary
Dakota Goyo is really likeable as Jamie
Rise of the Guardians is The Avengers of Dreamworks, 4/5
The Anonymous Critic
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