Frozen - Pure Disney magic and glorious family entertainment!

Rating: Null/10 (30 December 2013)

To say that I was apprehensive about going to see Disney's latest animated film, Frozen (2013) would be a bit of an understatement. I viewed t the film as simply an extension of what I saw as Disney's latest trend. Example DreamWorks Animations released How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and soon after Disney counters with their own Celtic-based adventure, Brave (2013) (which, admittedly, was one of Pixar's best films ever). More than an original masterpiece, I thought Frozen would be a reaction to DreamWorks foray into a winter wonderland with Rise of the Guardians (2012). And, from the ads and trailers, I felt like Frozen was just going to be a holiday season, money-grabber. So, coming from a Disney kid
I really need to stop underestimating Disney. This movie wasn't just good it was absolutely, breathtakingly fantastic.
First off, comparing Disney to DreamWorks was incredibly wrong of me. I beg forgiveness. While DreamWorks seems to have a standard formula for their more successful animated features (HTTYD, Kung Fu Panda, Rise of the Guardians), Disney is constantly throwing original and exciting material at their audiences (also, this film apparently has been in the works since the 1990's. Never judge a book by its cover). Frozen is no exception. Based (very) loosely off of the Danish folk tale, The Snow Queen (1845), by Hans Christian Anderson, the film sets up a unique scene in the land of Arendal where sisters Anna (Kristin Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel) struggle to connect after years of estrangement, caused by Elsa's mysterious ice-and-snow magic powers and her inability to control them.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, so let's just get the criticisms out of the way.
Unlike some people, my tiff isn't so much with the character demographics. Let's be realistic here, people, Frozen is set in a Nordic fairytale land. But, rather than making Elsa or Anna black, Asian, Inuit or otherwise, why not add a little variety? Not every little girl out there is white, blonde with blue/green eyes and a teeny-teeny waist. Hopefully in the future, the creators of Frozen (who also produced Tangled, obviously), will add a little bit of variety to their character designs.
The story was fantastic, but sometimes lagged when the characters weren't singing their hearts out. There were several times when I sat twitching in the auditorium, impatiently waiting for the next song so that the story could actually move forward.
Undoubtedly, one of the film's greatest moments was the performance of "Let it Go" by Idina Menzel, who absolutely astounded with her killer vocals. The sequence was astonishingly beautiful in addition, "Let It Go" is just a simply beautiful song.
And talking about the MUSIC! I was immediately in love after the movie's first song, "Frozen Heart" and the wonderful duet in "For the First Time in Forever" (adorable). Though it's not apparent whether or not Frozen will go down with the older Disney classics, the parallels that it has to to older musical tales such as The Lion King,Mulan, or Beauty and the Beast is undeniable. It's a wonderful improvement from the somewhat flat songs of Tangled, and might just be the best musical-film that Disney has made in decades. But with the killer team of Christophe Beck, Robert Lopez (The Book of Mormon) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Robert's wife how cute!), what could you expect?
And what is a Disney story without a love story? Yet, Frozen throws the conventional love story to the wind in this adaptation. More than the often ridiculous notion of "true love," Frozen supports the wonderful idea that "everyone's a bit of a fixer upper," that you can "fix this fixer- upper with a little bit of love," and that Prince Charming's aren't all that they're cracked up to be. Sometimes, the best love stories are the ones that take time, and are unexpected in the best ways possible much like real life.
My favorite part of Frozen, however, wasn't the romantic aspect of the film it was the lack thereof. While some critics have bashed the film for its lack of focus on one particular protagonist, the story at its base is about two sisters and their love for one another.
In layman's terms, it's a classic Disney variation of an old fairy tale, complete with just the right combination of wonderful characters, charming music, a beautiful story arc and its specific brand of Disney magic (ice or otherwise) that DreamWorks could never hope to replicate. But, more than it's a break from traditional Disney-fairy-tale magic, with the typical, romantic formula that everyone's seen before. It's glorious family entertainment.
Or, if you're a hopeless Disney kid like me, it's a little slice of your childhood, that will send your little Disney-kid heart aflutter.