Great Film, but with Missed Opportunities

Rating: 1/10 (28 November 2013)

Visually, Frozen is perfect. Absolutely perfect. One of the most stunning works of animation I've ever seen. The equal of Disney's best.
From the settings to the character animation, it simply couldn't be better, and many scenes in the film could never have been captured with even the finest 2D animation as effectively as they were in CGI.
The Norwegian influences were wonderful and greatly deepened the story, creating a rich and convincing and believable, organic world that was fascinating in its touches of folklore and historicity.
Having said that, the movie is at times a bit frustrating, due to its many missed opportunities.
In creating Elsa, Disney devised the most complex and unique princess in its history. As a character, she is the most conflicted and fascinating since Prince Adam (the Beast), in Beauty and the Beast. And no princess has ever suffered as much as Elsa does. She may not have been physically cursed, as was the Beast, but her life is every bit as tortured and isolated; indeed, more so, because the Beast only hurts himself, but Elsa has to live knowing that she once hurt her own sister.
It was a huge missed opportunity on the part of Frozen not to give Elsa a love story. Nothing in the world could have been more beautiful than if this character, who spends a lifetime (not to mention most of the movie) utterly alone, would have finally found romantic love. It could have been "the most beautiful love story ever told," if a prince had finally begun to see past her dangerous side, helped her realize her goodness of heart, and shown her the romantic love that she's been denied her whole life (which, at the age of 21, would be an aching longing for her indeed).
Not every princess needs a prince, of course. Many princesses are fine without them, and frankly, I don't see why Anna needed not just one but two romances, where her sister got none. Anna's storyline could have sufficed in learning that love at first sight isn't always true. She hardly needed to experience yet another, "successful" romance the very next day, which practically undercut the first message (one day is too short to love someone, but two days is okay?).
But Elsa's case is unique. In her case, it would have been so beautiful to have seen her find romantic love, because of how tragically isolated she has been her whole life.
And the sister story wouldn't have suffered, because after all, Anna has her two romances AND achieves sisterly reconciliation as well, so Elsa could have experienced both forms of love too; indeed, in Elsa's case, it would have been much more meaningful, because she's been deprived of love her whole life and never thought that she could ever have a husband and family, due to her ice magic.
Apart from that, the film missed another opportunity by showing us so little of Elsa's heart. Much more of the film could have taken place inside the ice palace, where Elsa could have disclosed her heart to a sidekick of some kind, either serious or comical or both – and better still, a sidekick that SHE HERSELF COULD HAVE CREATED. That has never before been done in a Disney movie, a princess creating her own sidekick, and Elsa's interactions with her sidekick or sidekicks could have been as moving and memorable as the Beast's interactions with his cursed household, which are some of the most powerful scenes in Beauty and the Beast.
More scenes of Elsa as an "artist of ice and snow" would have been beautiful as well, and more of her ice-magic casting would have been thrilling to see. And the scenes that do appear, such as her "Don't feel. Don't feel" scene, when her ice palace turns red, could have been turned into a second song.
Those are just some of the film's missed opportunities, all having to do with not capitalizing on the film's most exciting character.
Don't get me wrong. I love what the film does show us. Even with the scenes we do see, Elsa is amazing, and as I said, Disney's finest character, ever. I just wish that there had been more of her. The road-trip side of the story, which takes up so much of the running time, just doesn't seem as interesting. It's been done before, and frankly better, with better action and characters.
But as I said, I think the animation is top-notch, and the performances that the animators gave to the characters, especially Elsa, are incredibly convincing. You believe in every emotion that's on screen, and nothing seems fake or cartoonish, except for the questionable twist ending.
Frozen is wonderful as it is, and along with Tangled, is one of Disney's two best films since The Lion King. But with just a different emphasis on the most interesting characters and an even more joyous ending, with Elsa more richly rewarded for all the suffering that she goes through, it could have been even greater.