The Disney Magic Is Here!

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2013)

Frozen is a Disney animation, directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, and stars Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Jonathan Groff. Frozen centres around Anna, a princess whose sister has powers over ice that are unknown to the rest of the kingdom, until at her coronation to become Queen, her powers are revealed. Anna sets off to find her sister after the disaster, and help her fix her mistakes.
Frozen is certainly one of the best Disney films in recent years. It's incredibly touching, funny, and brilliantly animated. Every single frame was a beauty to behold in the way of animation, and everything looked it's finest. All the characters are impeccably designed, and all of them have real qualities to them, something that has become rare in Disney princess animations.
The film is a musical, which I fortunately knew about before entering the cinema. For my brother, this was a complete surprise. Despite his less than enthusiastic wonder for musicals, my brother, as well as myself, was incredibly impressed by the quality of the songs. Every one of them was sung to perfection, and we got a couple of sure to be Disney classics here. The already Golden Globe nominated song Let It Go, sung by Idina Menzel, is absolutely wonderful, and certainly deserves the nomination for best original song. I'm already humming the rhythms to at least 3 of the songs in the film, which is a testament to their brilliance.
The score is also a wonderful aspect of the film. Christophe Beck is well known in the score world, and he delivers a fairly awesome score, that fits perfectly with the tone of the film. For the most part, it's very delicate, and it can be quite heroic at certain moments. In terms for a Disney princess film, this score is certainly one to marvel at, and I can see myself listening to this many times in the near future.
All the voice actors give wonderful performances, and all are cast well, except for Idina Menzel, unfortunately. Whilst her singing voice is incredible and she gives a great performance, she didn't fit the role of Anna's sister Esla, a young, scared, innocent woman very well. Despite this, the rest of the cast does very well. Kristen Bell is perfectly cast as Anna, as is Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, and Santino Fontana as the true love of Anna, Hans. All in all, the cast does pretty damn well, in every individual role.
Frozen does well not to turn itself into a typical Disney princess film, with unpredictable but reasonable plot points. Certain characters had sudden changes in motive that really did surprise me, something that is certainly a good thing. The film does have a few pacing problems, towards the beginning, in my opinion, though. The film progresses a little too quickly to begin with, as do certain characters relationships with each other. These problems are dealt with later on in the film, to my delight, so it's not too much of a problem. For the most part, Frozen is well paced, unpredictable and intelligent, which is a change from most of the recent animations we've been getting.
In summary, Frozen is one of the best films of the year, by far. All cast members gives their best performances possible, the writing is wonderful, and the animators deserve awards for their great work. Whether you're bringing kids or not, you should love Frozen, despite it's minimal flaws. It's certainly broke into my top 10 of the year, that's for sure!
9.4/10