One Sentence: A fun family action movie.
Rated: PG
Release Date: 21-Nov-2012
Nudity: None
This movie looks weird. Visually it looks weird, for those who have never played a Final Fantasy game in the last decade, and the story looks weird. It doesn’t look like your normal holiday fare, and actually it isn’t even a Christmas movie. Dreamworks took a risk with Rise Of The Guardians. Turing holiday ideas on their head, changing the standard way things look, and going with an animation style that is much more Japanese. I don’t know if your kids will like this movie, but I bet you will.
Rise Of The Guardians is a different type of family movie. It has fights, and quite a few dark elements. It has sharp edges, and mostly everything is not very cute. Santa Claus has tattoos and wields swords. The Easter Bunny has boomerangs and an Australian accent. The easiest way to relate this movie to something else is it is like an Anime action cartoon…with a little heart.
I loved the risk they took with Rise Of The Guardians. It is so different, so new, that I think if popular, it might bring in a whole new format for family movies to the US. Something a little bit more edgy, for the 12 year olds, not the 8 year olds. It is fun, fast, and has a very dark evil villain. No songs, no dance numbers, and sometimes the characters are irresponsible. The characters are not perfectly polished and I liked that. The style is risky too and it works very well.
It is easy to recommend Rise Of The Guardians to go see this Thursday. It isn’t a Christmas movie however so that is your fair warning. It is fine for kids, even the young ones, but they might not be as into it as the older ones.
