Marval Movie

Rise of the Guardians is another one of the Dreamworks animated movies that's high on ambition and comes with plenty of creativity, originality and fun for kids and adults alike and will be enjoyed by the whole family.

The movie starts with narration from Jack Frost (Chris Pine) being born (technically) and that he knows his name, how, "because the man in the moon told him so", OK then. It accrued to me, while I was reading Roger Ebert's review of Rise of the Guardians that there isn't a public vision of Jack Frost, as a boy I actually did have a vision of Jack Frost, I don't remember whether if I was told it by someone or I made it up myself but it was a man in  suit and a had with longish hair and of course frosted all over. Here he is a boy of around...lets say sixteen with pale skin and ghostly white hair, bare feet and something warm on his top, and comes equipped with a staff of frost, a spirited personality that is brought to life with Chris Pines performance and, of course the animation.

The members of the Guardians are Santa Claus, voiced by Alec Baldwin sporting a Russian accent, which doesn't make any sense, if it was a German accent then it would, but he seems to have a Russian accent only because it considered cool. He also has tattoos on each forearm that serve as his naughty or nice list and a big pair of swords... that's just awesome. The Easter bunny who is more like a rough and tumble adventurer than the cuddly interpretations that we've seen before, being that hes voiced by Hugh Jackman the team seemed to have embraced his Australian roots and given him a pair of boomerangs to fight with, its a kids movie they can get away with stereotyping. Then there's the tooth fairy that is some sort of human bird hybrid with an exhentrick personality to go with it that is performed delightfully by Ilsa Fisher. Finally there's the sandman who is made up of the sand itself and has no voice, this leads to some creatively funny animation to express the character through the animation all without dialog.

The villain is Pitch (Jude Law) who is the Boogeyman, who interestingly enough looks a lot like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, was this intentional? He wants to convert or snuff-out the belief that all the children have in the world for the Guardians and replace it with fear.

The plot and stakes of the movie are that if the children do not believe in the Guardians then they will grow weaker and weaker before they eventually die. I feel that Rise of the Guardians draws more that a little inspiration from Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather with the use of belief serving as the creatures of myth energy source. Guillermo Del Toro has been serving as Dreamworks creative consultant/ executive producer for their last few films and this is a good choice on the companies side, Del Toro is one of the most visionary people working in the business right now and with the boundless limitations of animation he can guide the film in more unique inspired directions.

Rise of the Guardians is a fine film for the family, adults may not have much of reason to go themselves but with the company of their children they will be in a happy atmosphere full of laughs and gasps.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4