Movie Review: Rise of the Guardians

“My name is Jack Frost. How do I know that? The moon told me so, and that’s all he ever told me…..”

DreamWorks has been known as the animation studio that has broken barriers for many decades. Despite the small flop here and there, they have far proven that they are one of the best animation studios regarding storytelling with the recent release of The Wild Robot in September.

But I’d like to go back, like way back to 2012, and review one of their underrated gems: Rise Of The Guardians. Taken from the strange but creative mind of William Joyce the movie was inspired by the Guardians Of Childhood Books.

Upon release though the company considered it a flop as it only got back half of what they made. Years upon years later it gained a huge following, like I’m talking HUGE. Mostly fans who’ve been just introduced to the franchise and others who’ve grown up with it. Bunny and Tooth are the best characters and you can try to change my mind lol but seriously, all the characters are great and the movie, with its flaws in mind, has so much charm.

The art of the book and the behind the scenes are exceptionally beautiful. One of the directors of Into The Spider-Verse actually had his directorial debut in this movie as well and what an amazing start it was. 

The movie follows Jack Frost, local hearthrob and alot of peoples childhood crush btw who is quickly pushed into his destiny of being one of the guardians after not hearing anything but told of his name from Manny, the man in the moon. The surrounding themes of isolation are indeed present and a message to anyone feeling lost and alone in the world. Who am I? And what is my center? What exactly was I put on the earth to do and will it ever be enough to be accepted? With the villain being Pitch Black the complete opposite of Jack frost.

Cinema therapy on YouTube greatly explains these themes deeper than I ever could in this single article and I highly recommend checking them out and of course the fandom that’s still going strong despite any news of a sequel or anything minus the mention of the movie in the DreamWorks 30th anniversary video. This movie means a lot to me and has been for the last few months ever since revisiting it and I’m really grateful I got to put some of my thoughts into this review.