Review: Frozen

In the 90s, I was spoiled for television options once cable became the big thing.  I can still remember when having just a few channels suddenly exploded into almost a hundred (yeah, I know, I'm old), but the number kept growing and growing as time moved on, and every possible thing you wanted to watch was on.  Old movies? Check.  Cartoons? Check.  Educational? Check.

However, one of the primary shows I reme- wait a minute.

Something feels off.  Hey, magic Internet voice, is something different?

Oh, we're doing this instead?  Okay, I can work with this.  Ladies and gentlemen, my review of Frozen.  Does it live up to the hype?  Will there be any massive spoilers?  ...well, I can promise a "not really" on the second question, anyway.



Frozen, the latest Disney CG movie that proves that my beloved 2D animation is, for all intents and purposes, dead until some other studio decides to get "artsy," is based off of the classic Hans Christian Andersen story The Snow Queen in the same way that a hamburger is based on a cow.  However, Disney has had good luck taking existing stories and giving them fresh faces (see: most everything they've done, especially anything related to Hans Christian Andersen), so I wasn't too worried about story integrity.

The story reinforces Disney's new approach to female characters, in that they can be just as engaging, heroic, and interesting as any other character they can produce without simply being "perfect girls" with no flaws who just want "more."  In recent years, in fact, it seems that they're willing to take female characters and either make them "ditzy and endearingly klutzy" or simply determined characters of their own right.  I'm slightly reminded of a recent quote by Joss Whedon:

"Why do you keep writing these strong female characters?"

"Because you're still asking me that question."

Two princess sisters, Anna and Elsa, are the main focus.  Anna is lively, energetic, and bubbly, while Elsa is withdrawn, private, and, not to make a pun from it, cold.  Elsa also happens to have magical powers that give her the ability to create and control ice, something she's deathly afraid will make people afraid of her.  Events happen leading to Elsa fleeing her kingdom, and inadvertently creating a new winter that washes over the entire landscape, leaving Anna to find her sister and save everybody.

It's this relationship that drives the story, and it's really something I don't remember any other Disney movie really approaching before, but then again how many Disney movies feature a character having a sibling that they're even remotely close to?

Now, everyone knows that the best villains are one of two things:

1) A basic archetype that embodies something for the hero to face.  These are characters like the Joker, Hannibal Lechter, or Anton Chigurh.  They're not human, they're small localized forces of nature that you can't negotiate with, expect pity from, or make a deal with.

2) A deeply flawed human you empathize with.  These are the Harvey Dents, Dr. Horribles, and Harley Quinns.  They're deeply flawed individuals who have a personal failing that they just can't seem to overcome that pulls them down.  They are completely human characters.

Elsa, the "snow queen," might be the most sympathetic "villain" I've ever seen in a Disney movie, and one of the deeper characters I've seen in a film this year.  She absolutely oozes drips with  exudes pathos. In a short period of time and with a lot of help from doors as metaphors, the movie sets up just how deep Elsa's fear of her powers is and what lengths she goes through to hide them from everybody.  It sets your mind to sympathize with just how lonely she is, but how the way she was raised causes her to keep everyone, including those she loves, at arm's length.

The big song number is "Let It Go," which is also one of the absolute best Disney songs I've ever heard.  It helps that Elsa is voiced by Idina Menzel, the Tony-award winning performer who is best known for playing the other great sympathetic villain "the wicked witch" in Wicked.

For the record, a few quick Google searches indicate a lot of people think that song's likely to win the Oscar for "best song."

Also, it's amazing how much growth they put into such a short song.  You have her shedding the royal responsibilities, literally letting her hair down after spending so much time holding it (and her emotions) back, and finally being able to let loose with a power that can create great beauty, but that she was always terrified of would bring nothing but fear and destruction.  It's her way of simply cutting herself off from the world and embracing what she's been hiding...while making a choice that, while human, isn't in her actual best interests.

Plus, you'll note the freedom from the tight, restrained version of herself to the "I'm finally free" version also shows itself in her hips when she's strutting through her new castle.  Damn.  THAT is how you draw "swagger" while throwing in a good dose of Marilyn Monroe and Jessica Rabbit.

Kristen Bell plays Anna, and I need to preface this by saying I've never really liked Kristen Bell's roles in things.  I never watched Veronica Mars (hold off the torches and pitchforks for a bit, okay?) but I didn't like her character in Heroes, her voice acting work left me wanting more in Assassin's Creed, and I didn't even like her in House of Lies...but she's also amazing here, and has a much better singing voice than I ever expected.  A bit of quick research shows she also had some work in theater at the start of her career, and it's really great to see that Disney is going for actual talent instead of just pulling in big name celebrities who don't quite get how "projecting your voice" works.

The movie has a lot of fun with your standard Disney fare.  You have some of the standards, such as "boy meets girl, they instantly fall in love," "true love conquers all," "the ridiculously smart animal," and so on, but I'm proud to say that there were at least four instances where I was positive I knew where the film was going just to have it pull the carpet out from underneath me and make me look at something in a brand new light.

I was worried that the snowman, the major targeting focus of the ads (you know, for kids!) would be rightfully obnoxious, because Disney has been known to let some absolutely awful "sidekicks" ruin otherwise great movies (Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the character's also quite endearing, and even when he seems about to wear out his welcome, he manages to leave the scene for a while so you don't get sick of him.

The humor is both clever and poignant, the graphics are simply mind-blowing, and you can tell the animators had a blast creating each little snowflake and every bit of detail in the background.  Anna and Elsa's little kingdom doesn't really have the same grandiose posturing as Agrabah, but when Elsa builds her ice castle, it rivals anything from Beast's manor to King Triton's undersea palace.  The music ranges from "standard Disney fare" to simply mind-blowing, and between key musical and graphic scenes, it really feels like Disney has recaptured what made them the absolute best at what they do.

I'm a bit jaded when it comes to modern animated movies, I'll say that without any shame.  So trust me when I say that I think Frozen might be pretty close to, if not definitely, the best Disney movie I've seen.  Ever.

I cannot recommend seeing it enough.

Oh, and Erik Overthinks Christmas Carols!

Okay, we all know the jokes about Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer, but there's something different that bothered me.

"Then one foggy Christmas Eve..."

...foggy where?  Everywhere?  Just at the North Pole?  "Okay, Rudolph, you got us to Greenland, you can go home now, we'll take it from here."

Had Santa never dealt with fog before?  How did he ever get anything done in London?