So my story with Rise of the Guardians is that a few months ago I, while waiting for another movie to begin seating, spent about 30 minutes staring at a giant standee display before I begrudgingly admitted that it looked more cool than the usual Dreamworks project. It wasn’t until afterwards that I found out Guillermo Del Toro is a principle creative producer/shepherd type guy on the project, restoring my faith that it’s not always my geek biases driving my taste, but some level of objective quality.

This TV spot is pretty rough, but more in that the sense that it looks like good material cut WAY too quickly. I like the look of things, and a voice cast featuring Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Chris Pine, Jude Law, and Isla Fischer is nothing to scoff at. Tim felt the same way about the international spot from a few days ago.

I’ll hopefully be speaking with director Peter Ramsay next week, and perhaps seeing the film a few weeks early at the Savannah Film Festival. If these things come to be, keep an eye out for some early word on if this is another worthwhile animation outside of the Pixar ranch.