My Take on "Frozen"

I went and saw the movie "Frozen" with a friend a while back; I hadn't seen any of the trailers, but I knew this was my friend's third time seeing it so I assumed it would be good.  Not really good, like "Hunger Games"-good or "Megamind"-good, but good.  When I went and saw "Tangled" a few years back, the trailers set my expectations WAY too high and I came out of the theater going, "Eh, well, it was pretty good;" certainly not the next "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," or "Aladdin," but I don't suppose that sort of magic can be recaptured so easily.  So, with barely any information on "Frozen" except that it was Disney's latest animated project, I wasn't looking for much.

Even so, I honestly didn't get a whole lot out of it.  Everywhere I go I hear people singing its praises (or its songs) and talking about how they've gone to see it three or four times, but I can't relate.  It's not that it was a bad movie, I just couldn't get into it.

As with "Tangled," I wasn't really impressed with the music.  It was pleasant, yes, and "Let it Go" was good, but nothing on par with timeless classics like "The Circle of Life" or "Part of Your World" or "Colors of the Wind", or even "That's How You Know".  Lately Disney seems to be settling for a lot of half-contemporary, half-tired-musical songs, like "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got a Dream," "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" and "Fixer-Upper".  Cute and catchy, sure, but neither soaring nor passionate.  I expect more from Disney.

• One million people choose this for their wedding.
• One million people are asked, "You do know what

happens to the characters in this song, right?"

• "WE KNOW, WE KNOW!!!"

With "Tangled," I was afraid that maybe I was just having trouble adjusting to a musical in computer animation rather than ye old traditional 2D format.  Pixar's never done a musical, and most of Dreamworks' movies, like "Shrek" and "Megamind", aren't musicals, so why did "Tangled" have to be a musical? . . . Then I realized that what really threw me was the placement of the first song.  Most if not all Disney's classics begin on a musical note.  (Quit laughing.  Puns aren't funny.)  Think:  "The Circle of Life," "Arabian Nights," "The Bells of Notre Dame," "Mysterious Fathoms Below", etc.—"Beauty and the Beast" begins with a prologue, but it's heavy with background music, and the first song follows the moment it's done.  After "Tangled"'s prologue, Rapunzel talks to her chameleon a bit before the first song—and it's really a laid-back, contemporary piece compared to most Disney openers.  In this way, I thought "Frozen" was a definite improvement.  One of the best songs was the opening bit with the men's choir singing "Frozen Heart".

Still, the movie didn't grab me.  I kept waiting for there to be a reason for me to want to stay and find out what happened to the characters, but there wasn't.  It wasn't engaging.  It was just cute.  And I felt like the plot wasn't really dynamic:  I didn't feel the weight of Anna's quest to find Elsa because, when she first set out, she didn't realize the potential for real danger, and then as soon as Elsa accidentally stabbed her they just went right back down the mountain again without a second thought.  In "Tangled," Rapunzel set out from her tower even though she thought EVERYTHING was dangerous, and it took a heck of a plot twist to send her back.

I also didn't care for the snowman.  A lot of people acted like he was hilarious.  Some of his lines were funny ("You hesitated.") but overall I thought he was sort of annoying.  I thought his head was ugly and his comedic timing was a hair too slow.  (shrugs)  Though I did love Kristoff's line:

"I'm gonna tell him."

"Don't you dare!"

For starters, she didn't fall for this.

And speaking of Kristoff—is it so hard for Disney to write a realistic romance anymore?  I know "Snow White," "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid" were easy because the male protagonists were unburdened by personality and left compatibility to the imagination of the audience, but Disney's probably taken some hits for that and has since committed to providing their romantic heroes with more depth.  The problem is that the chemistry just isn't all that believable.  Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder (or "Eugene" or whatever) made no sense to me.  I mean, Flynn was great, he was dry and witty and awesome, but I really couldn't see a guy like him going for a girl like Rapunzel.

Same thing with Kristoff, except Kristoff didn't even feel all that fleshed-out to me.  Good-looking guy and GORGEOUS singing voice and all, but first he's a cranky reindeer-loving icerunner, then he's just sort of nice, then all of a sudden he's madly in love with the heroine?  There were no character-illuminating/developing signposts to mark the arc on the way to the inevitable outcome of the "Male-Character-With-Most-Screentime-Proves-Better-Match-Than-Prince-Charming-To-Debunk-Rumors-That-Disney-Encourages-Indiscretion" cliché.

Disney has not shown itself incapable of writing good romances in the past.  (Though "Pocahontas" was a little weird—and not just because the real Pocahontas was about twelve years old when John Smith arrived in America.)  "Aladdin," "The Lion King," "Sleeping Beauty," "Lady and the Tramp," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hercules" all have heroes with personalities that work fine with their heroines'.  Even if you thought "Hercules" was the corniest, campiest cartoon you ever watched (and it probably was) you could still root for Meg and Hercules by the end of it.

One thing I will say about "Tangled," though—it had a great villain.  Kidnapping a baby and raising her to womanhood in isolation, all while pretending to be a loving mother, JUST to stay young and beautiful???  Man, that is COLD.  And creepy, for the heroine to realize that her greatest enemy was the only person she was ever close to for 99.99% of her life.  Whereas Hans felt like more of a "Plop!  Oh, I'm the villain now!" kind of thing.

And don't forget Elsa.  Because Elsa looked AWESOME.

Like I said, though, "Frozen" was not a bad movie.  It should be great for little kids, it just wasn't all that entertaining for me personally.  And I did enjoy some parts.  Backed by great music, the creation of Elsa's ice palace was visually and artistically thrilling; and I thought it was nice how the writers decided to make sisterly love rather than romantic love the primary focus.  And even if, as an adult, I really didn't need to hear it, it was a nice thought trying to teach little girls not to settle for the first guy they like.

All in all, I thought "Frozen" was a pleasant, wholesome movie with a light smattering of dry humor and a liberal sprinkling of whimsical over-the-top silliness.  If I ever have children, I might buy it for them; and I'm curious to see what new stories Disney's cooking up for this line of "verbal"-titled films.  The Princess and the Pea—"Tilted"?  The Twelve Dancing Princesses—"Spun"?  Or how about Hansel and Gretel—"Baked"?

Oh, and in case you didn't know—the Duke of Weselton is played by Alan Tudyk.  Zonk.