Frozen

Frozen

By: Nicolette Karter

 

        I just recently saw the movie Frozen, and I was impressed with how much I loved it. I know, I know, you’re thinking “Nicci, you say you liked almost all the movies you review. You’re a loving person & I love that about you, but it’s hard to believe there are so many good movies out there.” And you’re right; there are some really crappy movies out in the world. Most movies made nowadays suck. But believe me in this case, this movie was awesome! That said, it’s not so awesome people can’t find something to make fun of, and those things are awesome too (personally I like the Honest Trailers by Screen Junkies and How It Should Have Ended videos).

        But back to my opinion about the movie; I thought it was adorable. From a technical standpoint, the animation was superb and deserved the Oscar and Golden Globe it got for Best Animated Feature. The songs, and (more than that for me) the singing was also excellent. It might help that I like the actors (Kristen Bell played Anna, Idina Menzel played her older sister Elsa, and Jonathan Groff played Kristoff), even though I could only hear them. But I also really like the writing, you know? The plot was really good; though you would hope so with it being a Disney Princess movie (which are usually pretty well done) and with 6 people given writing credits. Although one of the writers given credit was Hans Christian Anderson, who is obviously dead but wrote The Snow Queen, which Frozen was based off of. I read that the names of some of the characters were named after Hans Christian Anderson-Hans, Kristoff, Anna, and Sven. See? I love little trivia things like that; and I like it when movie makers have little homages to other things or people. Like in this case, the guy who gave them a story that they made the right call to work with. I mean, it really panned out well for all involved.

        I just went on a Frozen trivia binge on IMDB (a website I use a lot when writing these articles usually for spelling names correctly), and this movie just went up a lot in my book. And it was up there already, but you know that by now. Anyway, a quick synopsis: Elsa is a princess with magical abilities but has to hide them because they are dangerous. Anna is her cooped up little sister who is just as hidden as Elsa, holed up in their castle because they’re (shocker for a Disney movie) orphans. When Elsa comes of age, there is a coronation ceremony for her, but things go awry. Anna meets a guy-Hans-and they fall in love & ask Elsa to get them married ASAP. But she’s like “Um, you just met; you can’t just marry a stranger. Do you know how often true love happens? Not often. He’s like the first guy you’ve ever met. I’m not going to OK this.” Which is awesome because in the traditional Disney Princess fashion, the shut-in girl falls in love with the first guy she meets, & runs off & maries him. So it was cool that they kind of did away with that, & in a making fun of the older movies kind of way.

        Subsequently, this gets Elsa agitated, which in turn leads to her powers getting the better of her, her getting run out of town as a witch, Anna leaving to find her, and the movie really starts to get going. Along the course of the movie, we see Elsa unleash her full potential (& sing that song everyone wants to get out of their heads), meet Kristoff & his reindeer Sven, and the comic relief Olaf. I won’t give away any more, but overall it is one of my favorite Disney movies. And I love me some childish humor & talking animals (like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Frog); although I’m noticing that the last three Disney Princess movies only one word (instead of the usual The adjective then noun formula for Disney movies), and neither Tangled or Frozen had talking animals. Funny, easy to understand animal sidekicks that have personified facial expressions and whatnot, but they don’t talk like Flounder or Gus-Gus. Anyway, just an observation.

        So, that’s about it for this movie. And the other things I got off track about, sorry I go on so many tangents. I like to think that’s part of my charm, though I know it can get annoying. Anywhoo, what did you guys think of Frozen? Did you like the sisterly love aspect? And what do you want me to review next?