Rise of the Guardians

Devon and I went to see Rise of the Guardians yesterday, and I think that every one of you should go see it. This movie follows the induction of Jack Frost into the elite group of Guardians whose purpose is to protect the children of the world and consists of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and of course Santa Claus.

From here on out there will be a few SPOILERS so go see the movie first then come read this.

The movie starts with Pitch, the avatar of fear, taunting Santa at the North Pole. Santa gathers the Guardians to discuss what to do when the moon tells them to find Jack Frost who is off playing with kids on a snow day.

Anyways, Pitch turns kids' dreams into nightmares and after stealing all the teeth from the tooth fairy's lair, manages to wipe out Sandy completely. After a cat and mouse chase throughout the realms of all the Guardians, they enlist the help of the last child who believes and his friends to defeat the Boogeyman and save the day.

It is an all around great movie. The animation is fantastically beautiful, the story is complex enough to be interesting, while still being geared toward children and understandable for them. There are a whole lot of things that are awesome about this movie. There is an inherent dislike shared between the Easter Bunny and Jack that eventually gets resolved as they go through the movie. The interplay between the characters is wonderful. On top of Easter Bunny and Jack's bickering, we also have the tooth Fairy's little minions who flit around joyfully and they along with Tooth are very fascinated by Jack's teeth as they are white as snow. This minor plot point is extremely hilarious and not over done, even though it would have been super easy for it to get to that point.

Throughout the movie you find yourself caring more and more for each of the Guardians and hoping that Jack will be believed in as he starts as being invisible to humans since they don't typically believe in him.



As it is a kids movie, everything turns out alright for a happy ending. However it is easy to get lost in the action and enjoy the action and the characters as they progress. The take on the North Pole is fantastic. It is almost a steam punk masterpiece of a fortress with tons of yetis around making toys and elves wandering around and getting in the way. The elves are a great source of comedy throughout as they are almost the same as the minions from despicable me, though much less annoying.




The voice acting is brilliant throughout. While most of the characters are voiced by very well known actors (Minus the voiceless Sandy), their voices are in character enough to not be distracting. The Easter Bunny being Australian is a great touch that makes you think why it hasn't been done before. While the plot is actually quite dark when you think of it, Pitch turning children's dreams into night mares.


The path of Jack is that he needs to find his center, his motivation, what drives him to do what he does. After a dark origin story where he finds his teeth and "Baby Tooth" helps recover the memory from it, he realizes he used to be a kid and fell into a frozen pond while saving his sister from the same fate. He distracts her from the fear by having fun, which is what becomes his center just as Santa's is wonder and Pitch's is fear.

This movie takes you on a roller coaster of excitement and keeps you intrigued throughout. I believe it will become an instant classic and I am perfectly happy with that. I think it is the best children's movie since Toy Story. I would have to give this movie a 10 out of 10 as there weren't any problems I had with it on the first viewing. I'd love to hear what other people thought. Leave your reviews below. Thanks for reading!

-Daniel Janes