At first glance, the audience might think of Rise of the Guardians as simply just another animated film with elementary humor, or they may even mistake it with another very similar title, Legend of the Guardians. The film has made its appearance as a family film for the holidays, directed by Peter Ramsey. Tattooing Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin) and giving the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) a boomerang and Australian accent may seem silly and a play for laughs. These elements might turn an eager movie-goer away from the film. However, they would find themselves delightfully wrong.
Although the film was not explicitly advertised as such, it is actually based off of William Joyce’s book series Guardians of Childhood. Without this information, viewers might judge the characters as ones as static with little characterization—which is not the case. The books take the time to characterize the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and North (AKA: Santa Claus), making way for the movie, which in turn presents Rise of the Guardians as a sequel. This film also introduces Jack Frost into the mix. The difference between the original Guardians of Childhood characters and Jack Frost is that Jack Frost has no memory of where he came from and spends time in the movie putting the pieces of his past together. The film’s characterization falls back on the assumption that viewers will have read the relatively unknown book, which is a bad assumption to make.
From the first minute, with the breath-taking scene of Jack Frost waking up into a life he has no knowledge of, the audience is drawn in. From there, Jack Frost lives out his life invisible to the children of the world because no one believes in him, unlike the more famous holiday figures. This is a similarity shared by both Jack Frost and the film’s antagonist—Pitch Black (better known as the Boogeyman). As time passes to modern day, Jack is chosen by the Man in the Moon to become the fifth guardian, in which he must stop Pitch Black from corrupting the children of the world’s belief in holiday figures.
Similar to The Avengers, the five Guardians (consisting of Jack Frost, North, Tooth Fairy, Sand Man and the Easter Bunny) are varied in personality. Alec Baldwin’s character, North, is laced with both dedication to the holiday he represents and also shows a little bit of self-adoration. Jack Frost, played by Chris Pine, constantly participates in creating snowball fights and storms to have just one person believe in him. The characters will cause the audience to become quite attached to them.
The tone of Rise of the Guardians is different than other DreamWorks movies such as Shrek, in which a few too many pop culture references are sprinkled throughout. Instead, Rise of the Guardians is a movie with colorful and light-hearted moments, but the overall mood is serious and urgent. It doesn’t leave the viewer groaning. Surprisingly, it drifts away from being a Christmas-centric movie into one for all holidays. While it has the holiday-cliché theme of “believing is seeing”, Rise of the Guardians uses it from a unique point of view this time, in which that motto is critical to the lives of both the five guardians and the children.
The action of the movie sometimes drags on a little too long. Although Rise of the Guardians is a family film, sometimes the scenes tend to be a little dark and were enough to chill even young adults. This, like the plotline itself, is surprisingly fresh and moves away from other animated movies in which things are far too hyper.
Rise of the Guardians is a memorable film that that everyone should see at least once—and more than once at that. It’s unpredictable and original and fun for all—a 4.5/5.
