Frozen Movie Review
Written by Sierra Schedin, Former Student on Friday, December 6, 2013
Disney released its long-awaited new musical film last Wednesday. Frozen, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Snow Queen drew in $93 million from the day it was released to Sunday. The princess movie was directed by Chris Buck and starred actors Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, and Jonathan Groff.
The story centers around two sisters, Princesses Elsa and Anna of Arendelle. Elsa, the older, was born with the ability to manipulate snow and ice. She and Anna used to be close, until Elsa accidentally struck Anna in the head with a beam of magic. The only way to heal Anna was to erase all her memories of her older sister's magic. The girls' parents decided Elsa should never use her powers again. The palace was closed off from the public, and Elsa and Anna grew distant from one another.
Fast forward more than a decade later: Elsa is of age to be crowned queen. The princess’ power has only grown and become harder to control over the years, and she’s dreading the coronation ceremony. When the party begins, her sister Anna immediately meets a prince from the Southern Isles and hits it off with him. To her delight, Prince Hans proposes to her by the end of the night, and she accepts. However, when the happy couple goes to Elsa to receive her blessing, the queen refuses. When Anna pushes the matter, Elsa loses her temper and reveals her power to everyone in the ballroom. Terrified of what her people will think of her, she flees to the mountains, leaving Arendelle smothered in an unnatural winter.
Anna follows her without hesitation. Along the way she meets Kristoff, an ice harvester. She convinces him to help her in her quest to find Elsa and reverse the eternal winter. Not long after they meet a live snowman named Olaf, who was created by Elsa. He also agrees to help.
I won’t give away the rest of the story, but I will say this: Frozen had a pleasantly surprising twist on the idea of “true love”. The animation was beautiful and very similar in style to its predecessor princess movie Tangled. Some people view that fact as a weakness of the movie, claiming Anna looks too much like Rapunzel, but I personally like the CGI direction Disney is taking.
However, when it comes to music, Frozen is less impressive. Aside from two select songs ("Love Is An Open Door" and "Let It Go"), the music was not incredibly noteworthy, fitting in the category of “average Disney tunes” in my book. I also noticed that the majority of the movie’s musical numbers seemed to happen in the first half of the movie, all within several minutes of one another, which was somewhat odd.
When it comes to the characters, I was rather pleased. Anna, for one, is awkward in an endearing way. She has a tendency to babble and accidentally blurt whatever is on her mind, making for some amusing scenarios with her love interests Hans and Kristoff. Kristoff is also an odd duck. He’s very close with his reindeer Sven, whom he shares carrots with (as in, he lets Sven take a bite and then eats it himself) and acts as a ventriloquist for. Olaf, most of all, was a happy surprise. I’ll be honest; I was not looking forward to meeting his character, expecting him to be overused comic relief. But I was gratified to discover that Olaf was actually quite funny, his humor not childish at all, even bordering on cynicism. By the end of the movie I was rooting for him.
Overall, Frozen was a good movie. I would definitely recommend it for any animation fans, and especially Disney fans. It’s enjoyable for the whole family, and a good way to kick off the holiday season.
