Film Review | Rise of the Guardians

It's become something of a trend in recent decades to not only revamp fairy tale and folk characters - to be fair, a trick as old as storytelling itself - but to zoom out and show them as full-functioning human personages with neurotic tics and foibles (both personal and professional).

Though it originally started as the niche pursuit of, for instance, comic books such as the inspired Fables (itself riffing off Neil Gaiman's legendary Sandman series) the tendency to make fairies, ghouls and spirits into relatable-and-fallible creatures has now even extended into mainstream television, with shows like Supernatural and Once Upon a Time.

So perhaps it's only natural that Dreamworks is also jumping aboard with Rise of the Guardians, which not only humanises some of the most enduring childhood myths but also grafts them onto another popular phenomenon: superheroes in general, and the Avengers in particular...

The gorgeously animated feature - which fully justifies its nature as yet another 3D-enhanced release - even begins in a similar way to this summer's Avengers Assemble: with a barely-explained irruption of an evil force - in this case the one-size-fits-all bogeyman Pitch (Jude Law) - into the fabric of our heroes' existence.

And who are the key protagonist's of Peter Ramsey's film, really? None other than Santa Claus (or 'North', voiced by Alec Baldwin), a decidedly more-athletic-than-we-imagined-him Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and the silent Sandman - who is charged with lulling the kids to sleep with pleasant dreams.

After their day-to-day operations are disrupted by Pitch, the moon - which apparently holds dominion over them - suggests they take the roguish Jack Frost (Chris Pine) on board as a new 'Guardian'.

The Easter Bunny in particular is not too keen on employing such a loose cannon among their ranks, and Frost, a perennial trickster with zero sense of responsibility, isn't keen to grow up just yet, though Frost becomes more motivated to play ball once he discovers that his new appointment might just help him unlock a few clues into his troubled past.

But will his selfish nature threaten to undermine his new team mates' efforts to safeguard the well-being of children's hopes and dreams worldwide?

Co-executive produced by Gulliermo del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth and an expert on the dark underbelly of all fairy tales), 'Guardians' is actually more traditional than it is innovative, boasting a clear understanding of what its characters represent, despite remixing their standard modus operandi into a superhero-like romp.

So, for example, Pitch's efforts to infect the dreams of children comes right before Easter (traditionally, the Bunny reminds us, a time of new beginnings). And Frost's own journey of self-discovery follows a very familiar trajectory of knowledge achieved through gumption and self-sacrifice.

(It would be interesting to see what more devoutly religious parents would make of the film's unabashedly pagan system: our protagonists operate like small gods, and they take orders from the moon.)

But perhaps because it is slightly self-conscious about its mythical roots, it's not as zippy and streamlined as some of its 3D animation counterparts. This is partly owing to its always-problematic team-up structure, with Frost being properly introduced as our lead-in hero far too late into the game. Not that we don't identify with his plight when it is finally related to us, but it's unfortunately smothered by a fistful of characters already, and on top of it all we also get a human protagonist to consider - the young boy Jamie (Dakota Goyo), who ends up being pivotal to the story once Pitch closes in with his cavalcade (literally) of nightmares in earnest.

Pitch himself is actually a highlight, though. It is highly probable that Del Toro had a hand in both his conception and design, as his slinky, slippery evil form could easily have come out of Pan's Labyrinth or Hellboy, and Jude Law - always best when he's playing villains - lends a seductively raspy tone to what would otherwise easily have turned into panto baddie-style histrionics.

'Guardians' is ultimately a collage of great action set pieces set to beautiful animation, with characters we've been familiar with since childhood being allowed to break out of the genteel cocoon largely imposed upon them by Disney, in recent generations.

Of course, it could have been so much more (as a rule, high-concept attempts tend to leap but high but come crashing down in their final arc). But it might just make you want to re-visit the old tales again... if only to remind yourself that at their core, they are more than just bedtime stories.