Frozen (Film Review)

After the disaster of Disney’s summer film Planes (Created by DisneyToon Studios not regular Studios), it’s nice to see Disney once again bring out their winter strong game (literally this time).  Last year it was the enjoyably fun, video game referencing Wreck-It Ralph; this year it’s a film called Frozen, loosely adapted (like all Disney animated films are) from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. 

The story tells the tale of not one, but two princesses (though one soon becomes queen).  The older one Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) has the ability to create ice and snow; though her control over it is less than ideal, as she ends up accidentally injuring her younger sister Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell).  As a result her parents keep her locked away from the citizens and her sister for years until Disney tradition strikes and both parents die; leaving Elsa as queen of the land and forced to interact with the people.  Disaster once again strikes when her powers are accidentally revealed by Anna and after a few other misunderstandings, Elsa flees the kingdom.  Anna decides to go search for her sister alone (which is weird considering she’s technically the queen now and it’d probably be wise to send some soldiers with the head of the state so as to protect against the freezing winter and wolfs) and ends up meeting a whole slew of colorful characters to help on her quest (including Kristoff, a mountain man voiced by Jonathan Groff and a living snowman voiced by Josh Gad).

The look and feel of Frozen can be described as “Tangled, but with lots of snow related elements”.  Using similar, if not the same CGI as Tangled, characters are given big wide eyes and smooth surfaced bodies; saving some of the more wackier designs for the zanier characters (such as the Duke of Weselton and the trading post salesman).  The entire look comes off as trying to be adorably cute, and while I’ve always preferred more imperfect character looks (like those from Wreck-It Ralph, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, etc…) I can’t deny the charm their appearances have.  Plus these more perfect designs hardly interfere with the wonderful facial expressions; capable of showing the character’s inner emotions without need for talk (though that hardly stops the characters from doing so anyway). 

The designs for the ice and snow are quite beautiful and at times creative…though I feel like they’re not creative enough.  I don’t know, I think they went a bit too basic with Else’s ice creations (most of the time her spells made simple spikes), as they probably could have gotten way more unique if they had really wanted too.  For example, so in the film Else can actually create life with her powers; why not have her create an entire civilization of ice people for her palace?  How awesome would that have been to see them interact with the soldiers or Else herself!  Or maybe when she was fighting the soldiers, Else could have created more unique weapons like cages, maces, living ice tigers or elephants (Or wolves since the other two animals do not exactly fit the location area).  The possibilities are massive; I just don’t think they took it far enough.

Now it’s important to note this is a Disney musical, which we haven’t had for a couple years; so of course I’ve got to talk about the songs.  And as you’d expect from the studio that has brought us some of our most beloved musical numbers, the songs are…very, very dull.  These have got to be some of the laziest songs written for a Disney film, and that’s me trying to be nice.  The songs are incredibly dull and often way to chipper and lighthearted, even for the more dramatic scenes (these songs make High School Musical’s seem dark and edgy).  And to make matters worse, half the songs are just complete filler; completely halting Frozen’s plot while our comedic snowman sings about how he loves summer or some trolls sing about matchmaking.  The only noteworthy song I found in Frozen was Let it Go; being the only musical number resembling something somewhat dramatic (key word being somewhat).  And even this song would have been at the lesser end of some earlier Disney films (particularly during the renaissance era), showing just how lack luster Disney’s musical numbers have become.

Luckily there are two saving graces for Frozen’s complete lack of musical effort; one of them being Frozen’s comedy, which has by far been the best out of all the 2013 animation films.  What’s nice is that Frozen rarely has to resort to cruder forms of humor (both in the raunchy adult innuendos and the kiddy fart humor categories), keeping the humor family fun while making it highly enjoyable for kids, teens and adults.  A lot of the humor comes from both the characters themselves; such as the scheming duke of Weselton (Alan Tudyk) whose plans to ruin the kingdom are just oh too obvious (he even accidentally says his sinister plans out loud), or Oaken the eccentric salesmen (Chris Williams) who can be both intimidating and funny at the same time.  Even the character chemistry can bring forth some laughable comedy, such as the interaction between Anna and Kristoff which is kept close to the Disney boy/girl “tough to each other at first but you know at the end they’re going to get together” tradition, but also given enough likable jokes and humor to keep it refreshing and fun to watch.

But what about that snowman guy?  Yeah, you know who I’m talking about.  The goofy looking snowman that’s appeared in every Frozen commercial so as to attract younger audiences to see it.  Well believe it or not, that snowman (named Olaf by the way) is actually the funniest character in the film.  This character could have honestly been the Jar-Jar Binks of Frozen if done wrong, but instead became a great addition I honestly enjoyed seeing.  The majority of Olaf’s jokes (save for the ones in his song) were always well timed and given some pretty good punch-lines; hardly feeling gimmicky or stale.  And even though he appears out of nowhere and really feels forced to fit into the script, Olaf becomes such a likable and funny character that I really stopped caring about it.  He even helps out in the overall plot (though not in the song department), saving Anna when she is in peril and giving her the advice she needs to move forward.

The second saving grace of the film would be its moral lessons on love, which not only deliver one good message, but two!  The first message is not to be too hasty when it comes to love and to get to know your “true love” before making any rash decisions.  This message goes against earlier (and even some modern) Disney films takes on love; where films like Snow White and Cinderella would show how you could find your true love in just one swift meeting.  Here that idea is thrown right out the window, showing it to be foolhardy and reckless.  While in theory the lesson here is to not rush into marriage, it could easily be interpreted as a G-rated warning on sex (an activity both girls and boys have been doing at younger ages more recently) and to be thoughtful on who you do it with and when you’re actually ready (making it a respectable message for younger audiences watching). 

The second message I almost thought they were going to skip at the conclusion; in a way ruining the first message’s impact.  Luckily they didn’t, and the idea that love isn’t always about romance stayed put.  While Pixar has long since beaten Disney to the punch (way back at the start with Toy Story as well as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, Brave, etc…); Disney’s take on love has majority wise been focused on romantic love, rarely diving into the platonic love between family and friends (with the rare exceptions; i.e. Lilo & Stich, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear; all of which came out around the same time).  Frozen gives a very balanced mix of both romantic and platonic love; playing on the idea that the different loves have different emotional powers; and even allowing a curse to play around with both concepts; leading to a well-made twist.

Despite finding flaws in Frozen, I still believe it to be the best animated film of the year.  It may have its fair share of faults, but the pros still outrank the cons; providing a film that’s smart, funny, charming, and above all contains two well thought out messages to leave the audience with.  Like the majority of recent CGI animation, Frozen contains a fun animated short at the beginning called Get a Horse; a Mickey Mouse short that mixes the traditional black and white hand drawn animation with colored CGI.  The combined result is not only funny but highly creative; featuring the original voices of these characters from way back in the 1920s-30s (including Walt Disney himself as the famous Mouse; a delightful treat to see especially with the upcoming movie Saving Mr. Banks also featuring him as well).