Best animated film I've seen in a long time

Rating: 8/10 (12 August 2013)

I remember seeing the posters for this movie while I was abroad in London. There were only posters of Jack, Tooth and Bunny. I remember going "wow, that looks pretty cool" and I've been meaning to watch it. I finally watched it before I came back to school and oh my goodness, I have no idea why it took me so long to watch this movie. It is a beautiful, beautiful movie. Because Jack Frost is the main character, his characterization is absolutely amazing. He's always portrayed as the villain or just this spirit that brings on winter, he's never really been fleshed out like this before. Not even Martin Short's Jack Frost was this great. Having him be a late teenager was a great idea because even though he's been around for 300 years he still loves to have fun. I also think that Chris Pine was a great choice for his voice acting, being his first animated film, I thought he provided enough charm, energy and emotion to this character to make him so lovable. I'm glad they didn't pick someone younger.
The Big Four were also amazing. North was Russian! Santa Clause is Russian! How awesome is that?? I'm not familiar with all of the origins of these legendary figures but the ones I'm used too went right out of the window with this movie. Santa being this Russian, sword wielding spirit was brilliant. I also loved the bit with their "centers" what are they guardians of? That is truly the heart of the film. The Easter Bunny played by Hugh Jackman in his usual accent was great, he was second favorite character in the movie. The animation for both The Tooth Fairy and Sandman was breathtaking. Never have I seen such detail like that on one character.
I believe that people misjudge movies like this because it's whimsical, it's a movie for all ages because it makes you not only feel sympathy for the characters, even the villain Pitch Black (the boogeyman), played by Jude Law, but you start to reflect on what your center (purpose) is. What is that you put out into the world? These five guardians, all put something into the world and they protect what they put out within the children. As you get older, this sort of thing doesn't particularly matter anymore once you start to get extremely involved in the real world but as a child, we relish in these things, in these figures: The Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, The Easter Bunny, The Sandman, The Boogeyman, and Jack Frost. This movie puts them out here, giving them actual reasons for being legendary other than the selfish reasons that we might come up with (we get something from them), they protect our childhood. This movie may not be perfect but it is the best animated film I have seen in a while and I adore it.