Return to greatness

Rating: Null/10 (11 July 2016)

Disney has never had quite such a streak of sheer quality as they had with their Renaissance, by which I mean their movies in the 90s, ranging from The Little Mermaid to Tarzan. All of them were at the very least above average, many of them to be counted among the very best, and quite honestly my Top Five Disney films consists of nothing but Renaissance films. They were all adaptations of beloved fairy tales and myths, all had gigantic Broadway style scores and focused on good, solid adventuring. Well, I say all. There was Rescuers Down Under, but that's something of a black sheep.
Nevertheless, when people think about Disney films, they usually think about these films. Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan. But then the team was broken, key people moved out of the studios and the magic of Disney, while by no means lost, never quite peaked like that. We still got plenty of Disney movies, but they were never phenomena like they used to be. Not until this film. People went nuts over this film, and for a good reason. It has it all. Phenomenal score, fantastic characters, gorgeous visuals and above all else, excellent, memorable story.
There is a term called cultural keystone. For example, you only need to hum a few notes of Hakuna Matata to anyone who grew up during the 90s, and you can be assured that they can and probably will join you in singing it all along. Likewise, I believe, will be the case with Let it Go or Do You Wanna Build a Snowman. Children will obsess over this film because it is greater than the sum of its parts. It's storytelling on a deep, life-defining way. I learned a lot of my morals from The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, and I honestly believe that the kids of the 00s and 10s will learn a lot of theirs from Frozen.
And yes, yes, it's not a perfect film. The villain has a great reveal, but has a pretty weak performance overall. The trolls can be a bit aggravating and I'm not one hundred percent sure the CGI will age gracefully, though I would bet a modest amount of money on that it will. But the story, the music and the characters are so good in this case that they easily compensate for the few flaws the film has.
What can you say, it's a born classic.