Beautifully looking and mature, but a tad overrated

Rating: 7/10 (10 October 2014)

Latest Disney animation feature is very loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen and opens with two royal sisters, Anna and Elsa, playing as children when Anna is accidentally hurt by Elsa's magical power of turning things to ice and snow. As a result, Elsa is convinced to suppress her powers and isolates herself in the castle from Anna. When Elsa must take the throne and appear publicly, her powers become apparent and she flees the kingdom, unwittingly leaving it in eternal winter. Determined to bring her sister back to reverse the curse, the flighty kind-hearted Anna leaves her spur-of-the-moment fiancé Hans in charge, coerces mountain man Krystof and his pet reindeer to lead her into the wintry wilderness to save the kingdom and help redeem her sister in the process.
Credits claim this film adaptation is "inspired" by The Snow Queen, although other than Elsa's magical power, there is not very much else in common with the source. The film itself is beautiful to look at, almost painfully mature in its thoughts and insight, and more than a tad overrated.
The central characters of Anna and Elsa (voiced by Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel, respectively) and the dynamics of their relationship are fascinating and in ways not usually found in Disney animated features. There is a large degree of intelligence and imagination at work here. If the story worked as well with the supporting characters, this would probably be a masterpiece. This is most definitely a female-driven film (although this will not prevent young boys from enjoying it), so it is probably not a surprise that the male characters get short shrift, but the film falls short in other areas as well.
Much like Bond films, Disney films are often only as good as their villains. Frozen quite simply does not have oneor not until the final moments when it conjures one up out of its butt crack. Much of the conflict in the film is internal, with Elsa desperately trying to suppress her powers so that she does not hurt anyone and the public does not regard her as some kind of freak. When she finally flees and embraces her powers, she does so at the cost of isolation from everyone and everything. This is all very interesting and adult, but cannot take the place of a good old-fashioned villain. As the film heads towards its climax, it seems even the writers must understand this because a here-to-fore perfectly amenable character is drafted for villainy and it just fails to ring true based on the character's behavior throughout the film. This is not just a minor problem, but a large problem from which the film never completely rights itself.
While Elsa and Anna are incredibly delineated roles, the other characters fare less well. Hans is introduced in a rather amusing "meet-cute" with Anna, but does not have much to do other than be goofily handsome, hold down the fort and then rush into the wintry landscape to prevent Elsa from being harmed by vigilantes storming her winter fortress. Krystof is introduced as a child, but has minimal contact with the sisters and nothing to do with the story until Anna drafts his help. Since his specialty is ice, we anticipate he might melt Elsa's heart when they meet, but they never actually meet and his character basically feels like a time-consuming fifth wheel that gets dragged or inserted into certain sequences because there "must" be a guy there. The asides the film gives him with his reindeer are mildly amusing, but should have been better developed – indeed the film could use a larger jolt of humor. And it is perfectly inexcusable that Jonathan Groff (as Krystof) and Santino Fontana (as Hans), two Broadway stars with terrific voices, are given nothing of worth to sing. I don't think Groff even has one number. I also find the magical snowman Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad) to be incredibly irritating. Perhaps it is Gad's voice or mannerisms incorporated into the character, but Olaf goes from harmless to fingernails on the chalkboard at warp speed – and the film never does explain how Elsa inadvertently manages to bring him to life anyway.
Other than the anthemic power-ballad "Let It Go," I don't find any of the other songs (what few there are) to be anything special. "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" feels no better than minor filler and neither the number given Olaf nor the number with the trolls prove memorable or advance the plot in any way.
That said, it is really hard to dismiss the film, thanks to its animated beauty and its fascinating central characters. The message of the importance of being true to oneself and not suppressing one's abilities, nicely limned in "Let It Go", is a good one and one that can be universally appreciated by anyone (child or adult) who feels they are being kept down. All combine to make this a thoughtful and worthwhile Disney entry, if not the classic its fans would quite have you believe.