Right Up There with Beauty and the Beast

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2014)

Ten is for excellent, not perfect. Indeed, even "Snow White" has it's flaws, including a few scenes "mistracked" as photographed by the multi-plane camera, frame-by-frame. Disney Princesses are present in most of the best animated works. (In "101 Dalmatians" there is no princess, for example.)The last glut of successful recent releases all include red-headed, "spunky" leads: Tangled, Brave, and now Frozen. I like Tangled almost as much as Frozen, as the story has more "bite" and has a "traditional" wicked witch in it. The floating "lanterns" at the climax of Tangled are quite beautiful. All these Disney Animated Features have one thing in common: they are "light operas" where larger portions of the dialogue are sung, not spoken. Here, it's almost overdone, as not all of the songs are THAT memorable, are they? The story is a bit watered-down, as I remember the "Snow Queen" being a lot more evil in the previous mostly-live action productions. Hallmark Entertainment did a good one in 2002. Also, some of the spoken the dialogue is insipid and childish at times. Here, Elsa's "touch of frost" becomes a King Midas-like Curse, and I don't remember it being quite that way in other versions. The computer-generated illustrations are spellbinding with intricate patterns of ice and snow. "Sven" the reindeer owes a lot to the talking ones from "Santa Clause". Olaf the Snowman looks a lot like a familiar Muppet, and offers comic relief when the plot overwhelms us. The "Marshmallow Troll" is just scary enough-watch for the "Easter Egg" about him after the ending credits! Both "Sven & "Olaf" are adorable and are meant to entertain little kids while the adults enjoy the movie. Walt Disney himself paid attention to this detail as well. Both Princesses Elsa and Anna look a little Barbie-Dollish, don't they, with "impossibly perfect" figures? The selfish-cad of a Prince is a clever plot twist. The magical trolls are also a clever stand-in for the "7 Dwarfs". Anyway, the ending works pretty well here, as "plucky" Anna is the key to finding the "love" and melting The Snow Queen's heart. Where's Elsa's hero? She needs a hero too. Beauty and the Beast, also mildly imperfect, beats this one out by just a "hair", in my book, but it's all so close. John Lasseter has truly saved the Disney Studios, hasn't he?