Frozen Review

Thawed.

Full review by Isaac Handelman

Many parallels can be drawn between Disney's latest entry in their animated canon, Frozen, and the studio's 2010 offering, Tangled: both center on quirky female protagonists, both are fresh takes on classic fairy tales, both feature some sort of large four-legged mammal as comic relief; heck, the two films even both posses bi-syllabic, single-word adjectives for titles. Perhaps these similarities are by sheer coincidence, but they nonetheless caused me to hold Frozen up to the high standard of its predecessor -- a standard that the film ultimately fails to live up to. It's not a bad film per se, but Frozen too often feels as if it's missing that spark of ingenuity that made Tangled such an entertaining ride.

In Frozen, Princess Anna takes center stage, voiced well by Kristen Bell. Anna sets out on a quest to find her runaway sister, Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel), whose mystical ice powers have covered the kingdom in an eternal winter. Along the way, Anna gets help from goofy sentient snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), and ice-salesman Kristoff, alongside his trusty reindeer steed Sven. Remember that four-legged mammal companion I mentioned? That's Sven. Suffice to say, he's not nearly as amusing as the loyal dog-horse of Tangled.

Instead, Frozen's writers let Olaf take over the majority of the comic relief. I'd be lying if I said the hapless little snowman didn't make me chuckle more than once, what, with all his ridiculous antics on the side of the action, but all in all, it seems that the screenwriters behind Frozen simply tried too hard with Olaf's character. Sure, he's occasionally funny, but he has absolutely no place in the larger scope of the narrative, and fails to truly endear himself to the audience or forge any sort of meaningful relationship with another onscreen character. For the majority of his screentime after being introduced, Olaf is just sort of...there -- sometimes amusing, sometimes grating, and never necessary. But he'll undoubtedly be the selling point of many of Frozen's accompanying toys, so I suppose he's served his purpose in the eyes of Disney.

Frozen's cast of characters is a mixed bag.

Luckily, most of Frozen's human characters fare better. For the majority of its runtime, Frozen features no clear antagonist. Anna is venturing to stop her sister Elsa, but Elsa's intents are never made out as malicious. The relationship between these two sisters is one of the more interesting dynamics Disney has managed in a while (of course barring Pixar's outings).

Male characters Kristoff and Hans are both voiced well, and play into the narrative in ways that are, on occasion, surprisingly adverse to convention. Kristoff, however, feels entirely under-fleshed-out, and ends up as a somewhat hollow shell of what he seems to have been meant to be.

Those moments when Frozen is ignoring Disney cliches are when the film is at its strongest. There's a particularly wonderful, convention-breaking twist near the end of the proceedings that made me wish that Frozen as a whole was as daringly fresh as that moment, as Tangled was. Instead, the film continually chases this aura of progressiveness whilst only fulling achieving it a handful of times.

The film finds its roots in Hans Christian Anderson's The Ice Queen.

Frozen harkens back to animated Disney films of yore by embracing the format of a musical. It’s far from operatic, but the film does get across a few narrative points in its songs. Mostly, though, they exist to provide a catchy diversion. In this vein, the soundtrack mostly succeeds. No songs stood out to me as instantly memorable (and even now I have trouble remembering any specific tunes), but the set list is diverse and entertaining. However, at times, the overpoweringly poppy vibe of the soundtrack becomes distracting, and does not always fit in with the fantastical nature of Frozen. One song in particular, belted out by Queen Elsa, becomes flat-out overbearing thanks to its unnecessarily loud, Katy Perry-esque delivery.

But every tune is choreographed impressively in the traditional, theatrical Disney style. If nothing else, the songs are marvelous showcases for the visual beauty of Frozen. The onscreen characters and colors simply pop; the film is an absolutely fantastic example of just how far CGI films have come over the course of the last two decades. Seeing the rounded smoothness and fluidity of Frozen’s world puts to shame the original Toy Story’s comparably boxy, jerky animation.

Despite its attempts to be fresh and cool (no pun intended), Frozen feels disappointingly stale. Sure, it’s got impressive visuals, catchy tunes, and some refreshingly convention-breaking elements, but the film wallows in the shadow of its superior predecessor Tangled, which Frozen continually attempts to measure up to. Unfortunately, it seems that Frozen was left outside the freezer for a bit too long.