This one isn’t going to be easy. It’s not that I have a bias against Disney entertainment or anything like that. In fact, I still kinda get a bit too excited when a new Disney is released. Luckily I have a two year old daughter I can blame for this misguided emotion but it just a ruse; I’d be excited about Frozen whether I could take my little girl or not.
And it’s not that I’m struggling to find the thematic elements of the film and make sense of them. Frozen is a pretty straight forward fairytale inspired by Hans Christen Anderson’s The Snow Queen. They say inspired because it is very loosely based on the source material. You will not see the devil here although he is integral to the original. They’ve really backed off from Disney Demons ever since Gargoyles went off the air.
Frozen is about two sisters struggling to be themselves. Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) wants to be a part of her sister’s world but Elsa(Idina Menzel) pushes her away because she has an incredible, magical gift that allows her to control snow; dangerous and cold. Queen Elsa loses control of her gift and sends the world around her into an everlasting winter while accidently injuring her sister. Anna can only be saved by an act of true love. Classic Disney Fairly Tale Action that will allow for the slinging of plenty Princess Anna dolls.
The reason I’m struggling with this review of the second Princess movie that removed the name of the actual source material and replaced it with an adjective (Rapunzel becomes Tangled, The Snow Queen becomes Frozen) is because I FELL ASLEEP DURING THE SCREENING!! I’ve been doing this for 4 years and it has never happened before… Well, I did snooze of for about ten minutes of Zero Dark Thirty but that movie was so convoluted and long that I didn’t feel like I missed anything. Here with Frozen I missed something.
I got about twenty minutes in I think. I remember lots of Broadway-esqe sing songing. The animation looked good and there was a strong sense that has more in common with Tangled than name structure alone. They feel like companion pieces. Elsa is named queen and some handsome man visits to take Anna hand in marriage and then it gets fuzzy. I’m gone.
The sound of children’s laughter pulls me back from the ether and I see a living snowman zipping around. Come to find out this is Olaf (Josh Gad), the comic relief for the film who is in fact very funny. Nearly everything he says makes me giggle to the point that I’m uncomfortable sitting in the dark giggling like a little girl. I wish I had brought my daughter. I could blame the giggles on her.
Now let me make it clear: it was not Frozen’s fault that I lost consciousness. The movie was entertaining enough and did seem to capture a touch of the Disney Magic. I’ve been incredibly busy at work lately and I’m kicking the caffeine so that makes for some low energy moments. I contemplated what to do but I decided I must be forthright and I’ve learned a lesson. It’s is very hard to critique something that you didn’t see. On that note, in an attempt to keep the Mouse happy, I’m giving Frozen a grade of B. I think that’s about right.