Let me start this review by stating that I am not a Dreamworks fan. While the company has made some great films (Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon come to mind), the executives seem determined to treat animation as a business rather than an art form. It shows frequently, with their many sequels to their more successful films, as well as constant and aggravating use of pop-culture references and celebrity voice actors. It is thus interesting that they have made Rise of the Guardians (sadly, no relation to the underrated Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole), a movie largely about childlike wonder and imagination. Does it work? Read on and find out.
Rise of the Guardians tells the story of the titular Guardians, a group based on various folklore characters in some way related to childhood. In particular, it tells the story of Jack Frost, here characterised as a troublemaking teenager who is recruited into the Guardians to fight a great evil. Yes, it's nothing too revolutionary.
Visuals: In a nutshell, this film is gorgeous to look at. The Guardians have imaginative designs (with the arguable exception of Jack, who is the closest thing to the everyman of the group), and are very expressive. The effects are suitably spectacular, with Sandman's dream sand being a particular stand-out. The film moves brilliantly as well, with several chase scenes through crowded settings being both easy to follow and exciting to watch. The setting is eerily beautiful, perfectly capturing the feel of a cold, snowy winter. The film does suffer a bit when it moves into warmer areas, which don't look as convincing, but overall, it is hard to fault this movie in terms of visuals.
Music: Forgettable. There's nothing out of place in this department, and it's all perfectly serviceable, but none of it was memorable to me.
Plot: As mentioned, Jack Frost is pressured into joining the Guardians to fight Pitch, a.k.a. the Boogeyman, who wants the children of the world to stop believing in the Guardians. The plan is sound in principle, and the Guardians' reactions to each step are equally sound. The problem is that the effects happen much too quickly to be believable. I'm going to provide a slight spoiler here and say that Pitch makes the children stop believing in one Guardian in a reasonably logical manner, but this causes them to stop believing in all the other Guardians as well. This is simply not believable. I for one stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy well before I stopped believing in Santa Claus, and I doubt I'm that odd in that regard. There's also a strong focus on western, and particularly North American culture, equating to the entire world. This gets particularly nonsensical when the Easter Bunny promises to bring spring to the entire world on Easter Sunday, in spite of the fact that half of the world will be in Autumn on that day.
Jack's subplot, which motivates him to become involved in the main plot, is actually much more interesting. In short, he has amnesia, and has no idea why he has his powers or what he is supposed to do with them. Through a clever (albeit a little hard to swallow) plot device, helping the Guardians will enable him to recover his memories of his past life. The amnesiac hero trying to uncover the truth about his past is a bit of a cliche, but it is common for a reason. Here, it is executed quite well, intermingling with the main plot while providing the occasional surprise of its own.
Characters: This is the film's biggest strength. As you can tell from the poster above, Dreamworks clearly wanted to sell the concept of a team, and the Guardians are quite a team of personalities. The group covers the main bases of childhood folklore with Santa Claus (here called "North"), the Easter Bunny (who is Australian for some reason - no, I have no idea why) and the Tooth Fairy. Each is a twist on how they are typically conceived, and it would be a shame to spoil them too much here. Suffice to say, all of them are entertaining. Sandman was a very bizarre inclusion for me, as I had only vaguely heard of him through some knowledge of the comic book character and the occasional reference in The Simpsons. Even he is entertaining, however, and his combination of muteness and expressive face is undeniably endearing.
Of course, the protagonist is undeniably Jack, so it's a good thing he works as a character. By focusing on his outsider status amongst both the Guardians and humanity, he instantly becomes relateable. He hides this all behind a mischievous exterior, but everytime something breaks through that facade, the moment becomes quite emotional. There's actually a fairly clever little symbol that relates to this, but again, I would hate to spoil it.
The film's villain, Pitch, is your standard embodiment of fear. He works well enough, and as another outsider forms a good contrast with Jack. It's certainly nothing we haven't seen before, but it's another case of a cliche that works.
The film also includes a group of children who become increasingly important as the plot progresses. They are a necessary inclusion, given that the Guardians exist to help children. Unfortunately, they are so utterly dull that their presence often brings down scenes that should be brilliant, lowering them to the status of merely being very good.
Voice acting: Since this is a Dreamworks film, it's not surprising that the voice casts consists mostly of celebrities, at least in the major roles. I have discussed this matter many times in the past, so I'll just say that this is another case of them being harmless but contributing nothing. There are two exceptions. The positive exception is Alec Baldwin as North. The actual quality of his performance is nothing special, and could be equalled by any number of professional voice actors. Baldwin had a stroke of genius, however, in choosing to give the character a Russian accent, specifically Siberian. This not only makes a surprising amount of sense (obviously, Santa Claus is going to be from a cold climate, and Siberia is amongst the coldest that is actually inhabited), but it also aids in making the film's interpretation of the character stand out from the myriad other versions. Kudos to you, Mr Baldwin, and I suppose I should add "The actor had a brilliant interpretation of the character" to my list of situations where celebrity voice actors are a good thing.
At the opposite end, we have the Easter Bunny. To put it simply, he has quite possibly the most utterly illogical Australian accent in the history of film. Rabbits are not native to Australia, nor are they even from the same hemisphere. While the Australian angle is also emphasised with the Easter Bunny's boomerangs, it's still an interpretation of the character that is so nonsensical as to be distracting. It's a shame, too, as the idea of an asskicking rabbit with a bad attitude is always entertaining, and even as is, the character is still my personal favourite of the group.
Emotion: There are two basic sources of emotion here: one relating to the Guardians as people, and one relating to them as symbols. Both essentially come from Pitch's plan to destroy the Guardians by causing children to cease believing in them. It may seem like a silly idea in some ways, but it packs some genuine emotional punch, because they are so likeable as characters. It is hard not to feel a bit of pain any time they suffer. This is especially the case for Jack, who borders on the tragic at times.
Unfortunately, when looking at the Guardians as symbols, the film overplays their importance. Now, I am not one to claim that figures like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny have no importance to childhood or to their respective holidays, but the film tries to pass them off as the sole things that make those times worthwhile. This is especially offensive to me as a Christian for fairly obvious reasons, but even from a secular perspective, it doesn't make sense. There are plenty of traditions to both holidays that have nothing to do with their respective Guardians, and getting rid of all of the Guardians isn't suddenly going to stop children from having an imagination, yet the film tries to show otherwise.
In short, it doesn't work, and it's a real shame. Losing the Guardians would still be a great loss for children and the world, but the film didn't have to try to make the stakes so catastrophically high. The characters are so likeable that any harm coming to them creates sufficiently high stakes.
Conclusion: Rise of the Guardians is a very entertaining film with likeable characters, great visuals and a story that is mostly solid. Kids have shown their love for it and undoubtedly will continue to do so. Unfortunately, while it tries very hard to appeal to the audience's imagination (and I believe it succeeds in this endeavour), it ultimately fails to hold a sufficient regard for its intelligence. The result is a movie that is very good, but could have been so much more.
Final rating: 3.5/5
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