Rise of the Guardians thankfully isn’t a sequel to Zack Snyder’s curious owl movie, but rather a fresh tale based on the characters from William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood book series. Set in the present day – around 200 years after those books, which were origin stories of sorts – the movie presents Santa (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) and the mute Sandman as the protectors of children around the world. They’re then forced to recruit the reluctant Jack Frost (Chris Pine) to join them after a new threat arrives in the form of Pitch (Jude Law).
Pitch is animation’s answer to The Avengers’ Loki – a singularly creepy, confident and erudite British villain. His plan is to plunge the world into darkness by making children fear him by sending them nightmares, and simultaneously stop them believing in the other Guardians. Handily that plan gives director Peter Ramsey the opportunity to show Pitch going after each of the Guardians individually, showcasing each of their individual powers and the worlds they come from. With visual consultants to turn to like Roger Deakins and Guillermo del Toro each location is vividly imagined, with every frame packed with detail from corner to corner – and unusually, so too out into the third dimension. Alexandre Desplat’s score (our interview with him here) wonderfully adapts to each location as some luscious sweeping camerawork captures the scenes, and those aspects combined make the movie a veritable treat for the senses.
Where fault may be found however is in the main thrust of the plot. Character explorations aside, the film unfolds into essentially one extended chase with the odd battle against Pitch thrown in here and there along the way. Visually it’s all there, but narratively you can’t help but feel there’s a lot being held back for potential further installments. Hold it up to the bona fide animated classics of the past decade and Rise of the Guardians would probably fall short, regardless of it being the best we’ve seen this year. Pixar clearly still have the edge when it comes to organic storytelling and can mine a deeper emotional well, but if Dreamworks’ latest effort is anything to go by then visually at least the playing field has been levelled.
[Rating:4/5]