Star Rating:

Rise Of The Guardians

Directors: William Joyce, Peter Ramsey

Actors: Hugh Jackman, Chris Pine

Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001

Genre(s): Animation, Comedy

Running time: 97 minutes

Jack Frost (Chris Pine) is having fun causing snow days and starting snowball fights all over the world, but is having trouble dealing with the fact that no child actually believes he exists. This is not a problem that the Guardians have; as Santa (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) and the silent Sandman are given power by the children’s belief in them. But it is this power that the Boogeyman (Jude Law) wants to steal for himself, so the Guardians enlist Jack Frost in an effort to combine forces and defeat the Boogeyman before he replaces all hope on Earth with fear.

What follows is a battle of good-vs-evil, with the idea of turning these well-known characters into super-heroes and super-villains an inspired one. The story they’re tacked on to, however, is a little flustered; there’s an awful lot of intricacy to the Boogeyman’s plot, but there’s no real sense of where the movie is going next, as some characters and story-lines can be picked up and then unceremoniously dumped with no reason or rhyme. Despite this, it still moves along at a fair old pace, and while there are some lulls between the genuinely impressive fight sequences, you’ll never be out and out bored.

Visually, Rise Of The Guardians is stunning. The character work is hugely impressive; giving these set-in-their-ways characters a complete overhaul, especially with Santa turned into a kick-ass, dual-sword wielding Dr Zhivago. On top of that, the A-List cast do some great voice work, with special mention to Jude Law for making his Boogeyman so deliciously evil. But the best characters, and the biggest laughs, come from those who can’t speak; the hugely huggable Sandman, the high-energy Santa’s elves, the girly squee’s from Tooth Fairy’s Hummingbird Helpers… expect a lot of these to be demanded in teddy-bear form this Christmas.

Which brings us to the last ingenious move of Rise Of The Guardians; despite the presence of ice, snow and Santa, the movie is actually set around Easter, making it a dual-season must-watch. And unlike recent holiday-aimed movies like Arthur Christmas and Hop, Rise Of The Guardians is one the parents won’t mind watching alongside their kids.