Review of Frozen (2013) by Mrmoviebuff — 20 Mar 2015

'Frozen' is the 53rd feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios and the 7th Disney movie executive produced by John Lasseter (director of 'Toy Story' (1995) ).

The people at Disney went all out with this movie, offering beautiful animation, spectacular songs, a well-written story and more colorful characters for kids to love.

'Frozen' is a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" in which it follows the story of a Queen named Elsa (voiced by former Broadway star Idina Menzel) who was born with the ability to freeze things and make snow appear. She has a young sister named Anna (Kristen Bell) who she accidentally zapped in the head during childhood and had to have her memory erased of her sister every having powers.

In order to protect Anna, Elsa locks herself in her bedroom and avoids any kind of contact from Anna. Anna feels like that she has done something to Elsa to cause this divide, but Elsa's anxiety and depression causes her ice powers to overwhelm her. It's clever how the people at Disney changed the Snow Queen from making everybody the victim of her powers to becoming somebody who is the victim of her own powers.

During the coronation, the gates to the castle finally open after years of being locked, Elsa is crowned the Queen of her kingdom since their parents died (typical Disney). Also, Anna meets a handsome man named Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana), they plan to get married and ask for Elsa's blessing, but Elsa doesn't want anybody to live in the castle, not when she has these powers that she needs to hide, and doesn't think that Anna should marry some man she just met.

Elsa accidentally exposes her powers in front of the guests at the ceremony and they all believe that she is some sorcery villain that performs witchcraft. Kind of like the Snow Queen in the original fairy tale.

Elsa runs away in exile and it's up to Anna to bring her back and make things right. Obviously, the movie is famous for that "Let it Go" sequence, while the song is great and Idina Menzel showcases her best singing talent, the animation behind it all is stunning.

This is some of the best animation I've seen since 'Beauty and the Beast' (1991) and 'Finding Nemo' (2003), we get a lot of tracking shots, establishing shots and high-angle shots as Elsa builds her ice castle. The color palette is mostly limited to blue and white...it's ice and snow, there's not many colors to use.

On the way, Anna meets an ice salesman named Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) who agrees to help Anna find her sister and they bump into a small, talking snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad) who offers plenty of laughs thanks to his perfect timing and whispering instead of shouting his jokes.

If there's one thing that this movie does, and a lot of good animated movies do this well, is making the characters believable and make you forget that you're watching an animated movie. You forget that you're watching a bunch of drawings that have celebrity voices, these characters are arguably more real than the live-action characters from the "Transformers" sequels and the "Twilight" franchise, those characters are archetypes and are one-dimensional...but not these ones.

Walt Disney's 'Frozen' is a handsome and absorbing movie that whisks you away into its magical world, the music is great, the animation is great and the characters are great. I did not know what to expect in Disney's 53rd feature, but not an experience this magical.