A beautifully made and epic animated adventure.

Rating: 9/10 (21 August 2018)

There's no denying that "The Avengers" really made a huge splash in pop culture back in 2012. With the film setting a massive box office record, it basically paved the way for epic crossover movies in Hollywood, both good and bad. Near the end of 2012, we got animated movie in veins to Avengers known as "Rise of the Guardians". Based on books written by Oscar winner William Joyce, it teams up childhood icons like Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Sandman to have them fight against the Boogeyman. For what I got, I was pretty impressed. Granted it does have some problems, but it was still a very exciting movie that definitely had a lot of great things to it.
Trouble is starting to brew around the world when Pitch Black, aka the Boogeyman (Jude Law) is starting to return to spread nightmares around the world and into the minds of children everywhere. Seeing the danger, North, {Santa Claus} (Alec Baldwin) recruits the help of his fellow Guardians, Bunnymund {Easter Bunny} (Hugh Jackman), Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and Sandy {Sandman}. Who are the Guardians you may ask? They are the ones that spread joy to the children of the world and protect them from dangers brought about. Realizing the dangers, the Guardians learn from the Man in the Moon that a new Guardian has been picked. The new Guardian is Jack Frost (Chris Pine), a mischievous teenaged spirit who has been creating fun winter magic without being guided by the rules. Initially Jack is reluctant to help until he realizes that his lost memories can be found if helped. Together, the Guardians must stop Pitch from spreading his nightmares around the world and worse, making the children forget the Guardians.
The story while good is definitely the weakest element of the movie. It is very predictable at times and doesn't have a lot of surprises, but it's still fun. I was invested in seeing the worlds of the film and loved seeing how the magic of the Guardians worked, but maybe having a little more of it would have made me really love this movie even more. The animation is outstanding. Coming from DreamWorks, this is some of the best stuff I've seen from them that's on par with the "How to Train Your Dragon" films. The colors were so rich and warm and everything was so vastly detailed and huge that it sucked me right in. The imagination seen in this movie is what animation was created for. I just simply adored it. As for the characters, they were also pretty fantastic. The casting of the characters is really what completely sold them for me though. Chris Pine playing the cocky Jack Frost was great, I also loved Isla Fisher's charming personality as the Tooth Fairy, and Alec Baldwin was also surprising as North doing a Russian spin on the Santa Claus character that actually really worked. Sandy was also a delight as he relied on visual acting for his performance rather than dialogue. However, Hugh Jackman as Bunnymund was the real scene stealer. He was really funny having a tough attitude and a thick Australian accent and I don't think anyone could have played it better than him. Apart from the story being a little predictable, I think my only major complaint was that it did feel a little too long. I was highly invested in the movie and excited to see where it was going, but the ending did drag on a bit and it did get me a little impatient. That's really my major complaint with this movie.
"Rise of the Guardians" still was a lot of fun. Despite a rather predictable story, the animation was still outstanding and the character are definitely ones to remember. I think this is definitely a fun movie for children and parents might also have a fun time watching it. Maybe it could've been a tad better more original, but for what I got, I'm more than satisfied.