Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians: A Hilarious, Enjoyable Animated Adventure

Sandman, the Easter Bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy convince Jack Frost to become a Guardian (Courtesy of Screenrant)

The last attempt at a movie about Jack Frost was in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, which was enjoyable, yet easily dismissible. Now, we’re introduced into Frost in a new light, as a fun-loving and often overlooked magical figure, bringing snow days and blizzards to the world, wanting nothing but acknowledgement in return. In the wake of the re-emergence of the Boogeyman, Jack is called to join Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Sandman as a Guardian to protect kids from fear and to keep belief in their hearts.

The Boogeyman (referred to in the film as Pitch Black, Pitch for short) is tired of being forgotten and unnoticed, and plans to eradicate the Guardians’ existence by making the world forget about them, specifically by bringing nightmares to overpower Sandman’s dreams and sabotaging the Tooth Fairy’s nightly collections, and reinstate fear. Because of this, kids start to lose their faith, and the Guardians become weaker as Pitch gets stronger. Early on in the film, Jack brings a snow day to a young boy named Jamie and his friends. Jamie is the embodiment of innocence. Even though every single child in the world eventually stops believing, he doesn’t.

What really makes this movie such a standout is the original take on the characters. The Easter Bunny could’ve been a disgruntled mercenary or police chief in another life. Santa is a buff, tattooed guy with a Russian accent, and his elves are very similar to the minions in Despicable Me with their behaviors. Sandman is mime-like, and his nonverbal communication comes off hilariously to the audience. Tooth Fairy doesn’t have a distinctly different character, but the idea of her having thousands of “Baby Tooth” fairies doing her job for her was a clever idea.

And finally, Jack. Jack resembles a teenage boy, sporting a hoodie and snow-white hair. He wonders why every other magical entity is seen, loved, and well-known while he is not. In the movie, he balances saving the world and discovering his past, and I must say that I loved going on Jack’s journey of self-discovery alongside him.

In a technical sense, this film also succeeds. An animated film has never won the Oscar for Best Production Design, but this might break the streak. The visuals and set pieces were so wonderfully and artistically animated. My eyes were never displeased, and the movie was a visual masterpiece. I have yet to see Wreck-It Ralph and Brave, but I don’t think a nomination for Best Animated Feature would be out of the realm of possibility either.

Overall, the screenplay was clever and sincere. What worked even better was when words were not employed. The elves, Baby Tooth fairies, Yetis who work in Santa’s workshop, and the characters of Sandman and Sophie (Jamie’s little sister) had little or no dialogue, but their presence added much of the comedy to the movie.

I’d be very interested to see a sequel to Rise of the Guardians, following a relationship between Jamie and Jack. There was a chunk in the movie that focused completely on the guardians, with no exposure to Jamie whatsoever. I get why they did this. This was Jack’s story, not Jamie’s. I loved Jamie’s character though, and given enough attention in a future installment could potentially make him as landmark a child character from an animated movie as Andy from Toy Story. A more in depth character study on him is something I would eagerly see.

This movie is a blend of Despicable Me and The Avengers. While I did enjoy Despicable Me more than this, and I didn’t get to see as much from the character Jamie as I would’ve hoped, I highly recommend this movie. It was definitely a film made for children, but I applaud it for its smart dialogue, original take on characters and refusal to dumb down for its demographic. I also appreciate the idea of introducing Jack Frost to the world, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie caused kids to start running out to the streets on a snow day, yelling up to the sky with a grin, “Thank you, Jack Frost!”

Rating: 3.5/5