FROZEN - Review

Frozen

Animated Musical, 2013
1 hour, 25 minutes
Written by Jennifer Lee
Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Rated PG for "some action and mild rude humor"

Starring
Kristen Bell
Idina Menzel
Jonathan Groff
Josh Gad
Santino Fontana
Alan Tudyk
Chris Williams
Maurice LaMarche

"You want to talk about a problem? I sell ice for a living."

Frozen is the latest in Disney's princess/musical lineup, and for the most part, it's good. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but it's still enjoyable. The animation is pretty much identical to Tangled, with solid character design and vibrant colors. The songs are pretty good, but only a couple really stand out. The movie kicks off feeling very much like an old school Renaissance era movie, which made me pretty excited. Unfortunately, the feeling disappeared quickly. There are maybe two or three musical numbers that really made me feel like I was watching a classic Disney movie.

However, Frozen does a lot of new stuff that I wasn't expecting. The movie, in a nutshell, is about two sisters named Anna and Elsa. Anna is a carefree, but lonely princess. Her older sister, Elsa, has powers that let her freeze stuff. Why does she have these powers? Don't bother looking for an explanation. There isn't any, but it's kind of hard to look past simply because of how important it is to the film. So basically, some shit happens and Elsa runs off and kinda sorta causes an eternal winter in the kingdom. So Anna goes off to find her. She teams up with a little comic-relief snowman named Olaf and a guy named Kristoff and Kristoff's moose named Sven. So they go on adventures and they sing and stuff.

The best thing about Frozen is the characters. Excellent voice work gives the characters a tremendous amount of depth. This isn't just Anna and Kristoff, the main characters. This also applies greatly to Elsa, who is probably the most sympathetic villain in Disney history. She's more of a victim than anything else. Anna and Kristoff have great chemistry and a surprisingly believable relationship. Olaf, the little snowman dude, is really just there for comic relief, which isn't really needed. Some of his stuff falls flat, but when he's funny, he's funny.

There are a few story beats that felt really rushed, mostly in the beginning and end of the movie. There's a lot of exposition that is mostly effective, even if it is short. Once the movie hits its main story beats, then it really takes off and gets good. And yet, the ending, while not entirely predictable, still felt like it was tying up its loose ends at a breakneck pace.

I definitely don't think that Frozen is the best Disney musical out there, but it's probably the one we need right now. It's not amazing, but I'm happy that Disney is trying out some new stuff with its storytelling. Some of it pays off, some of it doesn't. I don't think it even compares to the Disney Renaissance films, but some may argue otherwise. I personally prefer hand-drawn animation instead of 3D animation, but hey, that's just my opinion.

7.4/10