An astonishing disappointment

Rating: 1/10 (29 November 2013)

(Spoilers) At one time, sisters Elsa and Anna knew of and loved to utilize Elsa's (unexplained, apparently genetic? even though no one else in her family has them) ice powers. Then an accident and a warning by the (ostensibly) wise troll – that fear will make Elsa's powers dangerous – prompts her parents to fearfully seclude her, shutting her away from everyone and isolating her from her sister. The trolls erase Anna's memory of Elsa's powers. (No one apparently considers the implications of seclusion and terror regarding the power). The girls grow up. After their parents die at sea, Elsa becomes queen. For her coronation, the kingdom is opened. Prince Hans and the Duke of Weselton are among the visiting dignitaries. Anna promptly falls in love with the prince, and agrees to marry him. When the queen refuses to condone her sister's impetuous match, they argue and Elsa accidentally reveals her powers, prompting the Duke to demand that she be arrested. Elsa flees, accidentally shrouding the world in "eternal winter" and leaving in power Anna, who promptly follows after her – appointing Prince Hans to rule in her stead (!!!). Apparently in this world, chains of command, diplomatic decorum, and other such trifles cease to exist. Anna loses her horse, and then teams up with a poor boy named Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. They all end up working with Olaf, a quirky snow creation of Elsa's, to find her sister. A romance blossoms between Kristoff and the fickle Anna. Meanwhile, Elsa has embraced her "bad girl" image (complete with sultry walk/slit up the thigh), building herself a lovely snow palace. The girls talk. Things don't go well, and Anna ends up with "ice in her heart" (which the trolls, long ago, had warned would kill her but for an act of true love). In the meantime, Anna's horse had returned to the city, and Hans and a group of soldiers go looking for her. They arrive just after Anna, Kristoff and co are expelled. Weselton's men attack her, a fight breaks out, etc. Elsa is captured. Kristoff, meanwhile, reveals that he had been adopted by trolls – the same ones, coincidentally, that had offered their advice to her family years before. The trolls explain that only an act of true love can save Anna. Kristoff and Anna race back to Hans, for a Kiss of True Love (TM). Kristoff delivers her and leaves. Hans reveals – gasp – that he has simply been after the throne all this time, and locks her in a room to freeze to death. He then claims to the ruling council that Anna is dead, but that they had been married before she expired (witnesses, marriage certificates and funerals apparently don't exist in this world either)...so that makes him king. They welcome him with open arms. Thankfully, there are no other heirs, distant relatives, or people who remember that they still have a queen alive (!!) around. He (with no explanation) believes he can get Elsa to turn back winter. Meanwhile, Kristoff and Sven are coming back because, true love. Elsa, in her grief at learning of Anna's supposed death, accidentally unleashes a tornado-strength blizzard. Kristoff and Anna are going to kiss, but Anna sees Prince Hans about to murder Elsa. She intervenes, and almost freezes; but, that being an act of true love, she is saved. At this point, Elsa figures out how to recall winter ("Love!" - that's it, no explanation).
Pros: - Pretty. Frozen is very pretty, very glitzy, full of beautiful landscapes, amazing snow shots and glamorous gowns.

Different. It has a different feel, architecturally and culturally, from many of the preceding princess films, which is nice.

Cons: Pretty much everything else.

The story was inconsistent. If you read about the series of "development hells" that preceded its release, it makes sense. They had no clue where they were going with this, and it very much felt like it at times: these were different ideas, different takes on the same story, all jumbled together.

Character immaturity/stupidity. If you, like, can see this being a classic, then, like, whatever, because classic Disney princes and

Plot idiocy. This ties into the first point. If fear is the enemy, why do you seclude/terrorize the princess with insecurities? How/why does "love" recall winter? Didn't Elsa love her family all along? Wasn't there "love" present all this time? There was zero explanation for how this worked. Just "love". Not to mention the flouting of anything like court customs, diplomacy, etc.: random foreign dignitaries are giving orders to arrest and kill the queen, foreign princes are left in charge of the kingdom, etc. Or the cringe worthiness of the trolls, and their irrelevance to the plot; and the fact that Hans never mentions having witnessed the royal family's first encounter with the trolls/how Anna's memory was wiped (Elsa also ignores this). The list goes on.

Predictability. The scene where Anna and Hans meet was terribly predictable, and just...terrible. The scene where Anna and Kristoff meet was equally predictable. The betrayal was predictable. The conclusion was predictable despite being completely unexplained.

Music. The music was of an exceptionally poor caliber in this film. The singers were overpowered by the instruments, the lyrics were indistinguishable, the songs out of place and silly, and often-times just cringe inducing (it's pretty bad when you're cannibalizing themes from your own previous films, like the troll rip-off of Hunchback's "A Guy Like You", and you completely, utterly blow it...)

Little kids will enjoy the prettiness of it all. Anyone who thinks about the plot, though, is going to end up with a headache. Certainly anyone who listens to the music. (And don't get me started on the rape-y Mickey/Minnie/Pete short that preceded the film. Yikes.)