Frozen (2013) Movie Review

FROZEN (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

Usually Disney can produce just one stellar animation a year, well my friends, it looks like Frozen is the film this year for Disney. 

After her sister's icy powers cause the entire kingdom to be trapped in an eternal winter, Anna (Kristen Bell) sets out to find Elsa (Idina Menzel) and ask her to return the kingdom back to it's original state. During her quest to find her sister, Anna manages to befriend a woodsman named Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and and his pet moose. As well as Kristoff, she also befriends a snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad) who comes alive as a result of Elsa's magic. With the cold now threatening to freeze everyone to death, this mismatched trio must now find Elsa and stop this eternal winter. One of the things I really enjoyed about the story in this film was that while I did know where it was inevitably going, I did not expect the route there to be filled with twists and turns that even for a Disney movie were surprising to me. Because of this, it managed to keep more interested in the story as well as the charming characters and the many dilemmas that they face in the film. But the thing that really kept me grasped with the story was the prologue as it shows why Elsa must conceal her powers from others and it really does show how hard it is for her to do this. As well as this, it also almost made me truly care for the character as it really does show her internal struggles as for a kid, it truly is a difficult thing to deal with. Overall, the story and characters were really good and kept me engrossed the entire time.  

Still of Kristen Bell, Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff

Since this is a Disney movie, superb animation is to be expected. And if this is the case, then those expectations were more than met. The animation in this film is easily Disney's best as since the setting for this world is primarily ice and snow, there are countless opportunities for creative and funny moments, which they use to their advantage here. Each character in the film appear very human like, both in their appearance and their personalities as everyone in this film, even including the snowman, are very relate-able. This is due to the different emotions each of them feel in different scenes, which are amazingly shown in their emotions and reactions. When going into this film, I just thought it would be another Disney comedy. While it is a comedy, the entire movie is actually more of a musical when you really begin to think about it. From I can remember, there are at least 7 or so different songs, though this is a film I saw about a week or more ago so I can't really remember specifics. Anyhow, these musical numbers while cheesy, were entertaining to say the least as they are usually used for story explanation and elements which is how I believe all musical numbers should be. Once again while they were cheesy, none of them felt forced into the plot in any way of it and it really did show just how creative the team over at Disney can be in terms of their story telling. 

Still of Alan Tudky, Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel

As for the acting, while I cannot really judge their acting as all that were used was their voices, I can talk about the characters they portrayed and how good of characters they were. And I must say, these characters are some of the greatest Disney has ever put on any screen. Anna I felt was the most relate-able character as she is a sister attempting to patch up a relationship with her older one whom is dealing with problems of her own. Kristoff was a good character in the right that someone has to be the relate-able man in the movie who is just a normal guy with a semi-normal job. While the snowman Olaf isn't exactly the best use of relate-able for this film, he was defiently a hilarious factor in the movie as he is just so charming in his delivery and basically nothing at all phases him and he is always happy, and if that is real, then that person MUST have problems. Out of everyone in this film I felt that the character that stood out to me was Elsa, the eldest sister. What I liked about her so much was that you could tell that she was going through a terrible thing and you could see that the film was putting her out to be the villain though in reality, she is far from the villain as she was not responsible for anything that occurred. Overall, the many different characters in this film were all remarkable in their own right and Elsa, n my opinion, is Disney's greatest female protagonist to date. And that's saying something.

Still of Idina Menzel as Elsa

Overall, Frozen really did surprise me in it's execution and overall impact. It really did show that Disney will continue to pump out phenomenal movies without even trying. While it may not be in my Top 5 or even Top 10 films of the year, I can fully understand why it would be on anyone else's.  

OVERALL: 8.4/10