Review of Rise of the Guardians (2012) by Charlie P — 29 Mar 2018

Ever since being created by the all-powerful Man in the Moon, Jack Frost (Chris Pine) has spent over three centuries causing mischief with his ice powers, while wondering about his true purpose in life. However, after he gets summoned by The Guardians, a group consisting of the likes of The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Sandman, the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) and Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), to help them stop the evil boogeyman Pitch (Jude Law) from destroying children's hope and dreams, Jack must rise to this challenge, in order to find out who he really is...

Released unfortunately in 2012, to middling box-office returns due to uninspired marketing, this beautiful looking film manages to capture the true meaning of childhood with it's complex, yet interesting ideas about the importance of each of the guardian's rolessuch as teeth representing memories and eggs representing new life.

The animation, especially the sharp-edged character designs, stands out as some of Dreamworks Animations most creative yet, thanks to the assistance of Gullimero Del Toro being more prominent here, as with most of the films produced during his brief skit at Dreamworks and although the voice-acting is a bit hit or miss in terms of Jude Law's Pitch, Alec Baldwin's Russian Santa and Hugh Jackman's Australian Easter Bunny are both a joy to listen to.

Overall, Rise of the Guardians, along with the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train your Dragon films, stands out as some of the best material that Dreamworks Animation has ever created, thanks to it's interesting worldbuilding skills and the beautiful animation.