Review of Rise of the Guardians (2012) by Jake M — 22 Apr 2017

Rise of the Guardians (2012) is an often fun and action packed adventure that has surprising depth and a lot of creative ideas. The story is very solid and they leave enough time to focus on the creative elements as well as the development of Jack Frost.

They play out the narrative like a fantasy version of The Avengers and it works thanks to it's likable characters and it's magical premise. I really appreciate how this movie goes in deep about how they protect the children of the world and how the power in believing is really important to our main characters.

However, the way they portray characters like Santa and The Easter Bunny can raise a few questions. I don't mind if they wanted to give a different interpretation on these beloved icons but there were some points in the film where it seemed like they changed a lot of the things to the point where it started to confuse me as to what I thought I knew about those characters.

It's not terrible and they do explain everything but the different interpretations seemed rather odd and confusing at some points. On the other hand, Characters like Sandman, Tooth Fairy, Pitch Black and Jack Frost himself, all are uniquely explained and they have their own share of unique powers as well as interesting backgrounds.

The actors they got to play the characters bring really likable voices and they really stand out in terms of giving them personality. One thing that felt a little distracting was the flow of the narrative.

Sometimes there's a joke or a moment with the kids in the real world that made the movie slow down. It's not that it's unnecessary but sometimes I feel like their could have been a better way to execute certain scenes.

The animation is incredible and it does everything it can to show off the magical abilities of the Characters and the amazing set designs where a lot of the characters are headquartered. The action is smooth and it does a great job with moving along with the characters wide range of attacks.

My favorite sequences have to be when the sandman uses his powers to bring dreams to all the children in the world. The Music score has an almost epic feel and it does great when things get really dramatic or really action packed.

It also gets whimsical whenever the mood lightens up or when a sad moment needs to happen. I consider this to be a very solid effort from Dreamworks. Everything in this movie is very likable and very imaginative.

It works out all the ideas you can possibly do in this premise and it executes them wonderfully. It does have a few bumps here and there but I really liked this movie and I think everyone who made this movie should be proud for the effort they put in (B+).