Charming, sweet and enchanting, but not without its flaws, Rise of the Guardians is the hopeful, feel-good movie for kids that's fitting for holiday movie watching with the family.

Rise of the Guardians is harmless enough, and the lack of easy pop-culture jokes represents the post-Shrek direction of DreamWorks well enough. But this is the studio's least entertaining film.

The conceit has its charms but too much of this movie, directed by Peter Ramsey, is more clamorous than inspired, and little kids might find parts of it too scarily intense.

As with The Avengers, each of the characters is given their time to shine and is nicely developed, while a tidy sense of humour sparkles on top of the darker undercurrents of the story.