Rise of the Guardians

I just had to watch a movie with Guillermo del Toro's involvement.  After Frankenweenie, Rise of the Guardians is a riot of colour, accents and again, the importance of a child's belief.

Rise of the Guardians is based on William Joyce's The Guardians of Childhood book series.  Never having heard of William Joyce nor The Guardians of Childhood, I watched the animation without any preconceived notions, unlike the Narnia Chronicles, which was good in a way, as I could fully enjoy the story without my brain furiously comparing between on-screen and the books.

The Guardians (of children's beliefs) are:

• an eastern european-accented tatooed Santa Claus known as North, who has Yatis building the toys instead of elves
• a large, kangarooy-like Australian-accented easter bunny
• a humming bird-like tooth fairy with her entourage of tooth babies who collect milk teeth of children (there's even a european division of tooth babies, french-speaking)
• the silent but magically golden sandman who conjurs beautiful dreams for children

The Guardians are sustained by children's belief in them, which is the same as adults' belief in religion, if one thinks about it.

The villian is the bogeyman Pitch, who is not content to hide under children's beds and wanted to instill fear and nightmares in children.

The man-in-the-moon revealed Jack Frost as the new Guardian who will aid the Guardians against Pitch.  Along the way, the initally relunctant Jack learns a lesson and eventually becomes a Guardian himself.

The animation for Rise of the Guardians was beautifully done, with lush colours.  Of course, it usually brings great wonder when Santa's workshop is brought to live.  Comic relief was provided by the Yetis who groaned when North declared that red is christmas colour and wanted the toys (already a mountain-high), to be repainted red instead of blue.

Jack Frost's character looked suspiciously like a Japanese animae character, with his floppy white hair and lanky build.

The elves were funny, wearing some kind of hoods with a bell attached to the tip.  The silent sandman, who wasn't able to catch the other Guardian's attention, pulled up an elf and shook the elf, as if he was shaking a bell.

In all, Rise of the Guardians is a glorious animation in celebration of children's beliefs.  However, the Guardians would be better known to children exposed to western literature.  A child in Indonesia or India would probably have less belief in North or Jack Frost than local deities.

http://www.riseoftheguardians.com/