Frozen review

FROZEN:

LET IT GO AND ENJOY THIS DAZZLING AND BRILLIANT DISNEY FILM!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

DISNEY

(From left to right) Kristoff, Olaf the Snowman, Elsa the Snow Queen, Anna, and Prince Hans in Disney’s Frozen

            Walt Disney Animation, the team behind Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph strike again with another CG animated fairy tale adventure, Frozen, loosely based on the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Snow Queen. Like most of their animated features, Frozen is jam packed with songs and musical numbers, beautiful animation, and of course magic, which shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, that’s what Disney is best at.

            The story begins with two young sisters named Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel), princesses of the kingdom, Arendelle. Anna is an ordinary kind-hearted girl, while her sister, Elsa has an extraordinary gift; she has a magical ice powers and can freeze things.

            Unfortunately things get out of hand when Elsa is being crowned queen after the death of their parents, and she accidentally sends the kingdom into an eternal winter and flees into the woods. So it’s up to Anna to search for her and bring her back to the kingdom.

            Along the way, Anna meets a young ice seller named Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer, Sven, along with a talking snowman named Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad), who accompany Anna on her journey to bring summer back to the kingdom.

            Overall, Frozen is one of Disney’s best, I personally like Wreck-It Ralph more, but this is still a fantastic traditional Disney film. Most of the songs and musical numbers are upbeat and extremely catchy, especially Idina Menzel’s Let It Go, it’s a wonderful musical number and has stunning visuals to go along with it.

            Besides great animation and catchy musical numbers, the characters are very likable. Anna’s a very gentle and friendly character with a charmingly adorkable personality that I was instantly attached to while Elsa is probably the most interesting character in the movie as she's a princess-turned-queen with ice powers and an incredible singing voice, but her powers are tied to her emotions and can be difficult to control (Also, 10 huge points for not making her the villain). 

            Kristoff is essentially the love interest-ish character but I like how they don't make him a super attractive hunk, he does things men normally do yet Anna likes him for who he is while Sven reminds me of other Disney animal characters like Max from Tangled in terms of his facial expressions and physical slapstick and those can get some laughs, Olaf is the main comic relief and sure, not every joke with him lands, but a lot of his comedy had me laughing and it's refreshing that a lot of his jokes are surprisingly quiet especially for such a hyperactive character like him. 

            I’m not sure how this movie holds up compared to most of Disney’s traditionally drawn animated films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, or The Lion King, but I think it’s one of their best 3D animated movies, alongside Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled, and Bolt. Frozen is great family entertainment and a perfect movie to see during the holiday season, it’s charming, funny, and of course, cool as ice.