Frozen

So I'm kind of behind with this movie. It was in theaters for a long, long time. It originally came out in November and I think it only just recently left theaters. Now Disney movies come and Disney movies go but I don't know if I've heard as much hype about a Disney movie for a long time before Frozen came out. And I'll be honest, I was skeptical.

Frozen isn't the typical kind of movie I usually watch. Think about the last few reviews I did were on serial killers and Guardians of the Galaxy. But I do have a soft spot for the Disney movies. I grew up with the 2D animations and I love Pixar movies but I've always been a little bit at arms length with the 3D animation without the Pixar brand on it. But I've heard nothing but great things about Frozen, and with the songs I've heard from it, I thought its time to see this movie.

Frozen follows the story of two sisters who are the princesses of a kingdom called Arendale. In the beginning, they are great friends until there is an accident with the older sister, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and her powers. Elsa is sort of like Bobby from the X-men in that she can form ice. So there's an accident and the parents bring Anna (Voiced by Kristen Bell) to a group of trolls who quickly heal her but wipe her memory of the fact that Elsa has super powers. Why they do that... I'm not quite sure.

But then the king and queen pretty much lock Elsa away with the hopes that she'll learn to control her powers. Well... years pass and eventually the king and queen die and Elsa is suppose to become Queen. The way she sees it, its just one event and then she can go back to her isolated life. Whereas Anna who has had no contact with anybody outside of the castle as well, sees this as an opportunity to find true love.

In short things go wrong and Elsa's powers are exposed. She flees the kingdom, leaving it in an eternal winter and Anna takes it on herself to go find her sister, bring her back, and end the harsh winter.

On the way she's accompanied by a mountain man named Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff), and his reindeer named Sven. They also are joined by a Snow man created and given life by Elsa named Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad).

Other voice credits belong to Santino Fontana, playing The Duke Of the Southern Isles, Hans, and Alan Tudyk (Firefly).

As far as individual performances go, the cast is really good. They were spot on when they casted Kristen Bell as Anna and they pronounce her name Ahna. The correct way. (I have a sister named Anna).

I was actually kind of surprised on how well Idina Menzel worked for the part. I think it was mostly from the music sequence I've watched of Let It Go and felt I was more hearing Idina Menzel singing as opposed to watching Elsa sing the song. But Menzel really does do the part well. I still feel Let It Go is a little bit more of a music video as it is a necessary sequence for the movie, but its a great song so I don't really care.

Here's the Sequence for you again

I'm also surprised how I didn't really feel this was just a recycled character of Elphaba from Wicked. 

I also had a preconceived notion about this movie that it was just going to be Idina Menzel doing a character just like the one she's so iconically known for for Wicked. And while there are similarities between the two, Elsa is her own character and while she goes through similar developments throughout the story, she mostly just wants to be left alone for the majority of the story which was much different than what I had kind of deduced from the song Let It Go. 

Which now that I think about it, is a really extreme way of declaring hermitage. Whereas Defying Gravity was Elphaba's way of declaring her rebellion and going against the norms by becoming the Wicked Witch of the West. Elsa sings the song to say, fuck society, I'm a hermit now, as she becomes the Ice Queen. It may seem like this ruins the song for me, but it doesn't its just a fun comparison and for what Disney was trying to do with this movie, it works really well. 

Which, speaking of, is not what I expected at all. Now I didn't think Disney was going to have Elsa just become the villain and be irreversibly evil, mainly because that lends itself to some dark endings that Disney isn't ready to go down with their family entertainment. But I kind of thought Elsa was going to snap a little bit and have the power to get rid of this winter and just choose not to. Instead it becomes a personal study of someone just consumed by fear and not really having a great relationship with her sister. Which really made the movie great, creating a relatable and fun relationship between the two. Apparently, Disney originally intended for Elsa to be the villain of the story. I would have totally watched that. I don't think I would have wanted to see her go 100% villain but still, it would have been an interesting choice. So while I kind of wanted to see Disney go a different, maybe darker direction with Frozen, the direction they go works for this movie and again, its really good. 

And that was kind of a theme with any of the criticisms I have with this movie. I just wanted to see more. The plot was so fun, the characters so charming, that I just wanted to see more. The movie was only about 100 minutes long and I would have totally fine if they had extended it another twenty minutes to make it a two hour long movie. This doesn't mean the movie wasn't good, I just wanted more. 

Some other thoughts I had on the movie. I loved Olaf.

Again, when I saw the ads for this movie, I had a preconceived notion that I was going to hate Olaf. He looks pretty dopey and I saw him more as the dumb sidekick that really has no purpose to the movie in the end. 

And again, I was wrong. 

I think it has a lot to do with Josh Gad's performance and writing but Olaf was just a lovable character. He kind of reminds me of the old 2D animation sidekicks that wouldn't take away from the main story but would still be a chance for comic relief. The only problem I foresee with Olaf is if they try to give him his own movie or try to make more money off of him. He's great as he is in this movie. If there's a Frozen two, which I really hope there isn't (its a great standalone film) he can come back but for now just keep him to this film. But overall he's one of the better comic sidekicks I've seen for a long time.

And that's another great thing the movie does. It really brings me back to the 2D animations that were just phenomenal. This movie just feels like the kind of movie that came out around the time of the Lion King, Aladdin, and countless others. The music and the animation is brought up to date to make sure the movie doesn't feel dated but at the same time there's a classic-ness to the movie that I think will make it timeless. 

There are other great elements of the movie. There's a twist near the end that I won't give away, but while I will say I called it from the beginning, they did a good job at concealing it. Also the resolution to the movie really is great.

Overall, Frozen just did a lot of things right. So many that I can't really think of anything bad to say about it besides the fact it could have gone longer and I would have been totally fine with it.

The music was phenomenal, the story was awesome, and the movie was just progressive. Now I'm usually not one to make a huge deal over how progressive something is, I think if you have to make a huge deal over something being progressive you're wasting time in making things bigger than they need to be. So while I won't go over all the reasons Frozen is soooo progressive, I'll lead you to a place that will.

Here's the progressive rant.

So have you seen Frozen? What did you think? Where does it rank with Disney classics? Comment and discuss below, let me know what you think.

I'll leave you with this. There are a lot of covers of Let It Go and while I want to be different, I did find this cover and I really enjoy it. Its done by the Piano guys and it combines the song with Vivaldi's Winter. Enjoy!