Great animation with well crafted deeper messages

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2019)

I was very pleasantly surprised with this movie.
Going into it I had fears of it being one of the many hollow and rushed animated movies that often go to theaters.
On the contrary, Rise of the Guardians, was clearly a beloved work that the creators put time and thought into. They appeared to truly care that they were creating a nice piece of art, and through that attention to detail, they did!
The writing and story is great; the dialogue also surprisingly complex. They do a good job at weaving in quality messages for younger audiences across a variety of themes from things more practical like self-worth, to more fantastical and fun things for kids like belief(in Santa etc). It's very tastefully done and they even add some original amendments to some common North American childhood story traditions that my girlfriend and I loved.
The animation looks pretty disappointing at the start of the movie(but this was 2012 to be fair), but it clearly becomes of better and more notable quality as the film goes on, with the exception of a scene or two that appeared to return to this lower budget animation(perhaps last minute additions to the film that they didn't have time to polish). There are many fantastically animated sequences that are very eye catching and pleasing to watch owing to the well choreographed movements on screen and attention to visual detail. The individual characters are well designed and bring their own unique visual and functional aspects to the movie.
The voice acting fits in par with the rest of the film. Very glad they pulled together a great cast to do justice to the other fine qualities of this movie.
My biggest complaint is probably that some of the smaller plot arcs that take place building up to the main climax, are a bit lack luster and less exciting to me in their nature, but they still managed to create fairly entertaining portions of the movies out of them nonetheless.
I would recommend this movie to adults looking to watch a wholesome animation, and would highly recommend it for any younger viewers or families in general.
This movie is a very strong 7. I'd give it a 7.5/10 if I could.