"Frozen" in my heart

Rating: 10/10 (8 June 2014)

Now acclaimed as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, Disney's 2013 film Frozen—inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's short story "The Snow Queen"—is an innocent tale centered around the story of sisters Anna and Elsa. Frozen features the voices of Kristen Bell as Anna, Idina Menzel as Elsa, Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, Josh Gad as Olaf, and Santino Fontana as Hans. In the film, Elsa's unique and supernatural abilities isolated her from everyone and caused a rift between her and her sister, Anna, after an unfortunate incident in their youth that endangered Anna's life. When Elsa's power is revealed to everyone in the kingdom, she runs away and it is up to Anna, with the assistance of Hans, Kristoff, and Olaf, to bring her back in order to save the kingdom and her sister from isolation and ultimately renew their bonds.
The plot was unique and different, even if compared to the many collections of Disney animated films, which made the plot developments less predictable. Unlike other Disney animated films, Frozen featured two Disney princesses which happened to be sisters, two leading men: a prince charming and an ice merchant, and a talking and singing snowman instead of a talking animal (Kristoff's reindeer does not talk). The plot's resolution is also quite unexpected and gave a new meaning to the clichéd Disney phrase "an act of true love."
Although animated, the film can easily be enjoyed by audiences of all ages. The familiar themes of love, friendship, isolation, and ambition that surrounded the animated characters made these characters much more familiar and human. The combination of fantasy and reality makes the film so much more interesting with Disney's spectacularly realistic visual and sound effects and the excellently written and performed original soundtrack. The film immediately opens with a song—"Frozen Heart"—sung by a crew of ice merchants as they are shown collecting and breaking ice; the ice looked so real and the sounds of the breaking ice was perfectly integrated with the visual. The film's heartfelt songs such as Anna's "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", Elsa's "Let It Go", Kristoff's "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People", and Olaf's "In Summer", complemented the personalities of the characters and thus made them even more lovable.
Overall, the film is very enjoyable and I cannot think of anything that was not good about it. It is one of those films that surely will join the ranks of unforgettable Disney classics such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, and Aladdin and forever claim a special place in the heart of its captivated audience.