All together now: LET IT GO LET IT GOOO CAN’T HOLD IT BACK ANYMOOORE · 8:16pm Jan 9th, 2014
Yes I finally managed to see Frozen via camrip--yes I’m a bad person but everyone was singing this film’s praises so I had to see what the fuss was about. Most people seemed to think this film was going back to the Disney roots—heart, family, and music. And it does…but it’s not as good as people would lead you to believe.
To be clear, I think Frozen is a very good film and I really did enjoy it very much, in fact I think it’s a testament to how well the good aspects of it were that despite the many of issues I had (yes many, we’ll get to those) I still recommend it highly and agree that it truly is a sign of Disney returning to what made it the cultural staple it is today.
So in case you’ve somehow missed all the trailers, commercials, review and hype here’s the lowdown: Frozen takes place in mythic alternative universe version of our world that all Disney movies take place in, this time it looks like we’re in its alternate version of Norwegian Swedish Denmark and focuses on two sisters of this nation’s royal family—Elsa and Anna. Elsa is the eldest and is born with ice powers (it’s never explained how she got them but it’s Disney so you buy it) which when they are very young she and her sister enjoy employing to make snowmen in the house and other sisterly bonding stuff.
But sadly one night Elsa accidently ends up injuring her sister and so her parents, rightly concerned, decide to help keep both their daughter’s safe to reduce their staff, close the gates of their palace, and keep their daughters apart. And then they die, in true Disney fashion. Now Elsa must ascend to the throne but since isolation has done nothing to help her truly control her powers it only takes a slight confrontation with Anna to trigger an ice explosion that terrifies her citizens and cause her to run away to be at peace, inadvertently locking the whole kingdom in an eternal winter. So now Anna must embark on a journey to find her sister and bring an end to winter.
Firstly, the music deserves all the praise it has gotten. The songs are sweeping, deeply and genuinely emotive and tenderly beautiful, as is the score itself. I swear, Let it Go must be nominated for best song at the Oscars or I can never watch the ceremonies again in good conscience. Secondly, the animation is incredible, particularly in the beginning when we’re being shown the girl’s childhood and growth. It all looks ripped from a painting and is reflective of the moods of the characters and the scene playing out. Lastly, all the characters are extremely well voiced, this has to be the best voice acting I can remember in any Disney film, which makes all them and their personal stories very relatable emotionally.
So, after all that, what is wrong with this movie? Strangely, a lot.
To start, it moves far too quickly. The back-story compressed into a song at the very beginning I understand and it does its job well, being probably one of the most impacting parts of the movie. But after that things start to jump from point A to B to C without allowing us to breath or absorb what’s happening.
Next, Elsa herself is more of a footnote in this movie. Despite being the character who really initiates the plot and has the big soulful music number, she really does very little except accidently turn the country to ice and get over it laughably quickly in the end. Her sister Anna is really the protagonist though she doesn’t really go through a character arc rather than her natural goodness saves the day. It’s beautiful and heartfelt, a good lesson too in the end, but she hasn’t really changed or grown as a person. She does show Elsa the true way to control her powers but it’s so sudden and so unexplained after all the emotional distress and turmoil that even in a Disney film I have to cry copout.
Speaking of the characters, there are no less than four singular ones and entire race that could have been cut out and nothing of the story would have changed. To be specific, Anna’s eventual love interest has literally no character development at all and they give no indication until the very last moment that they are even vaguely interested in each other. Compare their interactions to Rapunzel and Flynn’s in Tangled, who share five separate scenes and one montage engaging with each other one-on-one with no other characters to distract them. In Frozen Anna and her man hardly ever speak to each other on a personal level, they’re either trading brief quips or responding to other characters around them, there’s never a quiet moment when they sit down and simply talk to each other about their emotions or problems. I have never seen a Disney romance that left me…well, so cold towards the couple.
Other than the lover interest there’s the love interest’s pet elk, who serves no purpose except as their ride through the snowy wilderness and Olaf the snowman and comedy relief who I expected to be intolerable but turned out to be genuinely cute and funny. He had no real point and took up screen time that could have been devoted to letting our couple get to know each other, but at least he was enjoyable useless. Then there’s the fake baddie to sits in the corner of the screen’s peripheral vision rubbing his hands and scheming aloud about how he’s going to suck the kingdom dry through trade or something. He literally, seriously, did not need to be in the film, you can honestly cut every single moment of him out and nothing would be altered in the slightest. NOTHING.
Also there are magic trolls. That’s it. Don’t think it’s just a footnote in review it’s an even smaller footnote in the movie itself. They’re supposed to serve as an…“explanation????” I suppose for the magic but they never tell us why there’s magic, how it work or why it works so they end up being utterly superfluous and contributing the single dud song in the whole movie. I don’t know how the directors saw their scenes and didn’t immediately order them scrapped.
Then there’s the villain. The villain is the poorest Disney villain to date. And it’s not because the villain isn’t menacing or clever or a genuine threat, they end up being all of those in the end, but the revelation of their evilness happens in the very last moments of the film (I swear, it was like in the last 10 minutes of a 108 minute film) and had literally no build-up, foreshadowing, not even the slightest hint that they were evil. In fact the whole film spends all the villain’s screen time convincing us that they are a wonderfully good and heroic person so when they turn around and all but shout “Psych!” or “Loki’d!” it’s like finding out that Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was actually an agent of the Evil Queen or if Timon and Pumbaa were in league with Scar. I simply can’t accept the revelation and it really takes away from the film’s climax.
Actually, the entire climax despite being very emotional is full of problems—the villain’s completely inexplicable reveal, Anna and her love interest trying to reach each other in time, Elsa’s bizarrely quick overcoming of years of emotional stifling. It’s probably the most ill-conceived and executed close to a Disney film I’ve ever seen.
Another quick issue is there were quite a few characters that didn’t fit the tone of the film. The trolls, Olaf the snowman and a monster snowman Elsa calls up with her powers all seem too cartoonish cute to fit with the more realistic and elegant designs of the film and often broke the serious tone.
So at the end of the day, Frozen is bursting with spirit and sensitively and delivers a very moving message but is neither focused nor explorative enough on its characters. But it is one of the only movies I’ve ever seen that its poignancy is enough to overcome its problems and while not the best of Disney films it’s still has enough worth in its music, animation and moral to be a magnificent watch. So go see it and if you end up feeling slightly unsatisfied just buy the soundtrack. Or at least Let it Go
I had similar opinions about Olaf; when I first saw the trailers I thought he was going to be annoying, but when I saw the film he was one of the best parts of the movie in my opinion (after the Scenery Porn and songs, of course).
Good review that was
I haven't seen the film yet, but I do want to.