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| Frozen (2013) |
First of all, this is a very good looking film. Not only is there a lot of detail in the background and environments, but Good God, I just feel cold while watching this. It's not just in the night, but also the sunny winter day; this movie just nails the feeling of winter, despite me never seeing the snow or having the faintest idea what a sunny winter day would actually look like. It's an evocative landscape, and it's very effective. The presentation in general is really great, as you'd come to expect from Disney, of course, but it's still worth mentioning, since there are a lot of films that still can't get it right. The cinematography is on point; you really get a sense of the scope of the big sloping mountains surrounding Arendelle. Whenever Elsa uses her ice powers it all looks quite impressive, and the background music is great. Whenever the movie goes back to the motif of 'na-na-na-hey-ya' it's awesome, and I can't explain why. It just sounds good, okay.
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| Idina Menzel as Elsa and Kristen Bell as Anna |
Talking about the music, I should probably address the original music used in the movie, as it is one of the most contentious topics to come up whenever this movie is discussed. I don't have a problem with the film's soundtrack overall, a lot of it really holds up. The main problem I have with the original songs is the pacing of the whole thing. The first half an hour or so contains half of the movie's songs, all of which are really catchy and memorable. You've got the opening chant about ice being strong and all that s***, First Time in Forever, Love is An Open Door... yes, even Let It Go. There's a reason that song specifically took the world by storm in early 2014, it just is the best song in that movie. The problem is that after that song, there are only two left in the movie: one about 20 minutes later with the fun song about the snowman who was only recently created yet somehow knows the concept of summer but not that it'll kill him, and the song another 20 minutes later about the trolls singing a song about love that goes against the very point the movie is trying to make about falling in love too quickly, which is, to nobody's surprise, the worst song in the movie. The opening act is so saturated with music and the last two acts are so sparse; it's jarring. There is that short section with Kristoff singing to his reindeer, but that hardly counts. It is a problem though, as with song after song so quickly it gets tiring, and then when the odd song shows up in the last two thirds, you're like 'Oh, yeah, this is a musical, right'. Spreading them out a little more would have made the movie flow a lot better.
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| Josh Gad as Olaf |
On the topic of Let It Go, there is one thing I dislike about that song specifically, and it's nothing to do with the song itself. It's that you can clearly tell they wrote that song, then rewrote the rest of the movie around it. Because, be honest, the plot of Frozen really doesn't make sense. Everyone loves to talk about the elements of the plot that feel rushed, like how unused the rock trolls are and how out of place they feel in this world, or the fact that despite being told not to make Elsa fear her powers, what the parents decide to do is exactly that, or how the reveal of Hans as a surprise villain comes out of f***ing nowhere and completely derails the final act, taking all of the focus away from people being afraid of Elsa so everyone just accepts her out of f***ing nowhere as a result... I'm sorry, but as a writer, I can't not notice how messy this script is. A lot of the dialogue is fine, and it gets a lot of genuine laughs, but the story is all over the place. Talking about Hans specifically, you can use him as a cautionary tale about falling in love too quickly as much as you want, that's fine, and a good message to contradict outdated stories from a lot of the older Disney films. But, for the love of all that's holy, don't, don't, DON'T include a shot of Hans acting super nice to himself while Anna can't see it. At that point, he's acting out of character specifically to fool the audience, which turns his character into just that: a plot device to fool the audience. A well-written surprise villain is one that seems like a big shock on a first-watch, but the signs were all there in a second. This feels like the writers just decided he'd be a villain when they got to that point, but didn't go back and tweak the opening two acts to have it make sense once they got there.
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| Santino Fontana as Hans |
The voice cast do a really good job here as well, mainly Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel. Bell plays this kind of role really well; she reminds me of a more wholesome Eleanor Shellstrop, which is surprising considering she got this role long before The Good Place even began. I suppose this was just a roundabout way of saying you should watch The Good Place if you're not already. Regardless, Kristen Bell brings a very likeable quality to Anna, who might have easily been an annoying character otherwise. Idina Menzel gives a similar quality to Elsa, to the point where even though the story could lead towards her becoming a villainous character (more in line with the original Snow Queen fairytale), you don't want to see her go that way since she's so likeable. Despite this being the exact opposite point the rock trolls make, you really get the sense that Elsa is truly frightened over her abilities. Bell and Menzel also have great chemistry with each other, making the sisterly love angle which is integral to the film's climax all the more earned. The rest of the cast do a fine job, and they all do the best they can, but I feel like there are a lot of different people that could have done an equally good job. What I'm trying to say is that those characters don't feel all that unique compared to other Disney animated characters. You've got the comedic relief in Gad's Olaf, the surprise villain in Fontana's Hans and the goofy love interest in Groff's Kristoff. Of the three, Kristoff feels the most defined, though that's really only because the film doesn't lean into the love angle between the two as much as other movies might have, and I also love his friendship with Sven. At some point, this movie sort of feels like your typical post-Renaissance Disney film, to the point where I'm shocked that a lot of people describe this as the movie that reinvented the Disney formula.
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| Sven and Jonathan Groff as Kristoff |
Frozen (2013) is just another Disney film, but that still amounts to a good watch at the end of the day. You'll just have to turn your brain off to enjoy it thoroughly. I do admit, I was more enthralled by it on my first viewing, and doesn't quite hold up on repeat watches. As for Frozen 2, I haven't seen that one yet, so I guess we'll see how that one turns out. 6.5/10.
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