Frozen - Film Review

Frozen - Film Review

Hey Matt you should watch Frozen, many people said to me. It’s really good and it has a great message for young girls. So I watched Frozen and what was the main thing I took away from the experience. Don’t listen to people, they will only end up telling you to watch films like this one and you’ll end up majorly disappointed.

 

The film is about two sisters, Elsa and Anna. After the death of her parents Elsa is due to be coroneted as queen but she has a random assortment of ice powers that would throw the whole kingdom in jeopardy. Anna must save the kingdom and Elsa from her own powers and prevent an eternal winter.

 

The films main protagonist is a young girl named Anna. She’s a vibrant and innocent young girl full of life and energy. She is also painfully naïve and at times stupid. Yes she’s been deprived of social interaction by the world’s worst parents (although one must question why she doesn’t go out occasionally). But she still wants to marry a guy she met during that same day, she’s easily manipulated and let’s face it, she not very capable of doing anything on her own. I understand she was extremely sheltered but this made her un-relatable. I get these are her flaws but even with these she seems a bit too jolly and innocent in what is a pretty dire situation. I have to say also she is not a good role model. She is swept of her feet by a handsome and charming prince in about 5 minutes, just because other characters point out how dumb this is it doesn’t take away from the fact she wanted to marry someone she met a few hours ago.

 

Elsa is far more interesting. She is conflicted and understandably so about her powers but also not wanting to live a life of solitude. Furthermore she is pretty intense when she decides to let it go (see what I did there) and let all her powers take control and dispel all her despairs and fears of hurting people. What makes her more interesting is that she is obviously flawed. This doesn’t make her a weak damsel in distress, instead it puts her questionable actions in context and makes her more interesting as a result.  However her character weaken ironically when Anna turns up in her ice castle. She goes straight back the broken character while I would’ve liked to have seen her remain more cold and distant, at least at first. It would’ve made it far more rewarding when she does the right thing and understand the infinite power of love (no really) at the end.

 

I hate the snowman, he’s annoying and not funny and thus I refuse to use his name. I get that he’s comic relief, but that’s not an excuse for his annoyance. He doesn’t even attempt to make jokes, I think the running gag is his head falls off. It’s just not funny. Other than that he makes random statements and I wish he hadn’t been in the film at all.

 

Now the villain so spoilers I guess but to be fair it’s pretty damn obvious. Prince Hans seems like a typical prince but as soon as another male is introduced you know he will become the villain. He has pretty much no personality at all outside of being a typical charming prince and then power hungry ruler. What else is there to say, he is pretty boring.

 

The actual love interest, Kristoff is really strange. What kept bugging me is he shares carrots with his reindeer who he seems to like just a bit too much. Also why does Kristoff talk for Sven in a goofy voices? Animals can often talk in Disney films, why not just make the reindeer talk, it would’ve made a lot more sense. He’s kind of a loner, except he has a huge family of random troll people and a reindeer. But Anna opens his mind up to friendship and love or something? I don’t know, there wasn’t a lot to him. Again he was just a typical good guy who does the right thing in the end.

 

I think you can see where I’m going with this. There are no original thoughts in this film. I can’t believe people thought it was so unique. Elsa was quite interesting but other than that we have a bunvh of paper cut out of the stereotypical Disney character. The bumbling but ‘loveable hero’ the comic relief, the bland love interest and a power hungry villain. The only difference is the act of true love is from siblings, not two characters who are involved romantically.

 

The film follows a formula that has been done a million times. Maybe the film was too hyped to me but it was very average. Most of the characters are pretty bland and the plot isn’t that interesting. The twist about the villain is obvious and the ending is as cheesy as any other Disney film. I know it’s primarily for kids, but the best Disney films can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

 

I suppose I should comment on the quality of the songs. Honestly they’re all fine. I’m not a musical person at all and I’m not exactly a big lover of musicals but here the songs are perfectly functional. They get across what they want to and they I suppose and none of them offended my ears at all. I won’t exactly be singing them myself but for me they were at least passable, which is all I really want from Disney songs. So well done Frozen, a part of your movie is completely adequate.

 

The first song frozen heart has some burly men singing about ice. It sets up the not so subtle foreshadowing of the frozen heart metaphor and reveals itself to be like every film involving ice ever. It also brings up the point of if they export ice why are they disappointed that everything is frozen?

 

Next is do you want to build a snowman, a real tear jerker … apparently. Okay while not as emotional as everyone told me it was I agree it was a powerful scene. This was the only part of the film I actually sympathised with Anna as it highlights how lonely she is in the castle all by herself, particularly after her parents die. Elsa too corners sympathy as she is also lonely but also lives in fear of herself and her power.

 

Next up is called for the first time in forever and it consists of lots and lots of boring filler. Anna goes from wanting to spend time with her sister to wanting to find romance and I think there’s a line about her being gassy in there somewhere. Elsa meanwhile stands around all fearful at having to pick up a couple of expensive looking objects.

 

Next song is standard love song # 232 which is called love is an open door. Anna and Prince Hans sing a boring and annoying love song. There’s not really a lot else to say.

I cannot be the only one who though of this when
I saw Elsa's giant snowman monster thing

 

Next is that all famous let it go section and admit it’s actually pretty good. While I’m not really a fan of the song, the whole scene with Elsa letting go of all her restraint and freeing herself works very well. Her powers, while strange and unexplained (Making a dress?) do look very good and how she erects an ice castle could symbolise her letting out all her frustrations and fears. I admit this part was very impressive and memorable.

 

I barely want to talk about the other two songs. In summer and fixer upper. Oh dear. Talk about annoying filler. I think they’re supposed to be funny but I found them awkward and honestly quite tragic at times. These songs were annoying.

 

Finally the message. This is kind of a mixed bag for me. I like that it addresses love at first sight being too good to be true and the importance of family. I like that it highlights the absurdity of marrying someone you met that day and buried very deeply is a message about letting out your feelings and being yourself. However by most these will be overlooked for people to shout about female empowerment. The issue is most male characters in this film are painted as un-trustworthy and selfish. I like a strong female character, but equally I like them to be strong without having to be so unsubtle about feminism. What people don’t seem to get is that strong female characters work because they’re strong, not because they’re strong females. Equally having flawed and even weak female characters is fine too. Films will get a lot better when characters are defined by their personalities, not their gender. Not everyone is strong a righteous, this should be reflected in characters. We should not focus on trying to shove feminism down the viewer’s throat but instead produce relatable characters we can all understand regardless of gender. I feel they pulled this off with Elsa but not with any other characters.

 

So overall what did I think of Frozen? A resounding meh. It was by no means the worst film in the world. After watching it I can understand why people like it when looking at face value. For most it’s a fun little adventure with a heart-warming sibling relationship and a positive outlook on love and family. On top of this he songs are at least passable and the animation does look great. Maybe Elsa is too strong but in comparison the other characters do not stand up. It is her story but we spend far more time with Anna who by comparison is pretty one dimensional. Maybe we’re not supposed to look this deeply but the fact of the matter is that some of us do and the film does not hold up anywhere near as well as some of Disney’s other films. On top of this the plot was too simple and basic, the ending was corny, the supporting characters were uninteresting and the film lacked the comedy it was trying to produce. I was finding myself feeling quite bored at times, in particular about half way through. It did pick up slightly towards the beginning and end but this was not enough to salvage it. It wasn’t too bad but I wouldn’t recommend or watch it again. It’s kind of like a small scoop of ice cream on a really large wafer cone. Some of it as in Elsa and the animation are really good but you have to get through a lot of averageness to get there.