Directed by: Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Written by: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee & Shane Morris
When the newly-crowned Queen Elsa accidentally uses her power to turn things into ice to curse her home in infinite winter, her sister Anna teams up with a mountain man, his playful reindeer, and a snowman to change the weather condition.
This review contains spoilers.
Do you have a movie you swore you'd never watch? Especially a movie that was so annoyingly popular you kind of hated by default? If you answered, did you ever end up watching that movie? And did the movie prove you wrong?
Well, Frozen certainly did not prove me wrong. I admit I have my assumptions of the movie, but mostly I was hoping I'd see Frozen and think oh, well it wasn't that bad. Sure, it wasn't bad but it's not really good either. It's so aggressively mediocre I just feel annoyed after seeing it.
The story is inspired by The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, but The Snow Queen is a very interesting story. I actually have never finished the story, it was read to us in elementary school, but even just the beginning of the story was magical and interesting, and definitely not the bland Disney version. The early concepts of the movie were closer to the story. If you haven't seen any, google them. They are really amazing, interesting and stand out from the typical shit Disney throws into the movie theaters nowadays.
Here's the problem: if Disney wanted to make The Snow Queen, why didn't it make the Snow Queen? Why alter the story so much it's barely a shadow of itself? If they wanted to make an original story, they could've. Disney has made some movies that have an original story, and they are magnificent, but the stories that have a source material which they do not really follow are usually very boring. My sister pointed out this with Oliver and the Company: the characters and songs are really good, but because the movie tries so hard to be Oliver Twist, the story is quite bad.
Of course the story here is alright, but that's it, it's just alright. There's nothing absolutely interesting about it, apart from the sibling relationship. I mean most Disney characters seem to be the only child or an orphan so that's kind of new. And since the sisters were isolated from each other while growing up their relationship has a weird feel to it. It's understandable though, but it's not like, say, Lilo and Nani in Lilo & Stitch.
And there's one thing especially I'm really angry about the plot. The parents are so adamant about Elsa having to learn to control her powers, but how is it done? "Never use your powers again, suppress everything." There has to be someone in the kingdom they could've hired to teach Elsa, right? I mean that can't be the only magical thing in the kingdom. Hell, why didn't they ask the trolls?
Now I'm getting to the spoiler-y part, so if you're reading this and don't want to be spoiled (if you haven't been already it's a fucking miracle) skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, I want to talk about Hans. He's the villain, though you wouldn't know it, because he pretends to be something completely different throughout the movie until he reveals his true side to Anna rather spectacularly. Seriously, the "If only there was someone out there who loved you" -line, the whole scene was the best part of the movie, because it's so very intense. But what I love about Hans is they really kept his dark side hidden. I mean he didn't look evil, his design was actually quite nice, and he was helpful when Arendelle was frozen and people needed help... He didn't even get a typical villain song (though I would love to think it's this one). I mean I knew he was the bad guy, because spoilers were thrown in my face, but still it was made so well. You really couldn't tell.
Another big problem with Frozen is it should be edited more. The begining? Way too slow and has a completely useless scene and a useless song. Just start the story where it begins. There are several songs that add absolutely nothing to the story. Actually there are only 3+1 songs that are interesting and are useful: For The First Time In Forever (+ reprise), Love Is An Open Door and Let It Go. Honestly, there just were so many songs that made me want to scream edit, edit, EDIT!
You know who else adds nothing to the story? Olaf. He's a really annoying character that seems to be there only to be cute and sell merchandise. And guess what, Olaf isn't cute. With a better design and another voice actor he could be cute. Josh Gad's voice just doesn't make sense to me, and Olaf sounds like he should be voiced by Jack McBrayer. Honestly listen to this song from Wander Over Yonder and tell me he wouldn't be perfect for Olaf.
You'd think one thing I could say for certain about Frozen is that it'd be visually pleasing. Sure, it is. The snow and ice looks great, but you know who doesn't look great? Elsa and Anna. Many people have said this before me, but it's still true: they look bland, way too similar and to be honest, not very expressive. Also they stand out - or don't stand out - from the crowd. Side characters have their own special look while Else and Anna look exactly like each other and just don't sit well with the more interesting looking characters.
I'm old-school. I'm not a big fan of this kind of animation, give me 2D animation, maybe hand-drawn, and make the background or few special effects 3D. That's the dream. And computer generated animation always has those mistakes you can't make in 2D animation. In 3D there's mistakes like body parts clipping through each other. In 2D the most common mistakes are like colouring mistakes, stuff like that.
The story of Frozen is alright, very typical and very Disney, but I don't really see if there's a reason for the hype. Was it just advertised so much that everyone went to see it? Like was this genuinely because of the audience or was it just because it was that Disney movie?
This review contains spoilers.
Do you have a movie you swore you'd never watch? Especially a movie that was so annoyingly popular you kind of hated by default? If you answered, did you ever end up watching that movie? And did the movie prove you wrong?
Well, Frozen certainly did not prove me wrong. I admit I have my assumptions of the movie, but mostly I was hoping I'd see Frozen and think oh, well it wasn't that bad. Sure, it wasn't bad but it's not really good either. It's so aggressively mediocre I just feel annoyed after seeing it.
The story is inspired by The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, but The Snow Queen is a very interesting story. I actually have never finished the story, it was read to us in elementary school, but even just the beginning of the story was magical and interesting, and definitely not the bland Disney version. The early concepts of the movie were closer to the story. If you haven't seen any, google them. They are really amazing, interesting and stand out from the typical shit Disney throws into the movie theaters nowadays.
Here's the problem: if Disney wanted to make The Snow Queen, why didn't it make the Snow Queen? Why alter the story so much it's barely a shadow of itself? If they wanted to make an original story, they could've. Disney has made some movies that have an original story, and they are magnificent, but the stories that have a source material which they do not really follow are usually very boring. My sister pointed out this with Oliver and the Company: the characters and songs are really good, but because the movie tries so hard to be Oliver Twist, the story is quite bad.
Of course the story here is alright, but that's it, it's just alright. There's nothing absolutely interesting about it, apart from the sibling relationship. I mean most Disney characters seem to be the only child or an orphan so that's kind of new. And since the sisters were isolated from each other while growing up their relationship has a weird feel to it. It's understandable though, but it's not like, say, Lilo and Nani in Lilo & Stitch.
And there's one thing especially I'm really angry about the plot. The parents are so adamant about Elsa having to learn to control her powers, but how is it done? "Never use your powers again, suppress everything." There has to be someone in the kingdom they could've hired to teach Elsa, right? I mean that can't be the only magical thing in the kingdom. Hell, why didn't they ask the trolls?
Now I'm getting to the spoiler-y part, so if you're reading this and don't want to be spoiled (if you haven't been already it's a fucking miracle) skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, I want to talk about Hans. He's the villain, though you wouldn't know it, because he pretends to be something completely different throughout the movie until he reveals his true side to Anna rather spectacularly. Seriously, the "If only there was someone out there who loved you" -line, the whole scene was the best part of the movie, because it's so very intense. But what I love about Hans is they really kept his dark side hidden. I mean he didn't look evil, his design was actually quite nice, and he was helpful when Arendelle was frozen and people needed help... He didn't even get a typical villain song (though I would love to think it's this one). I mean I knew he was the bad guy, because spoilers were thrown in my face, but still it was made so well. You really couldn't tell.
Another big problem with Frozen is it should be edited more. The begining? Way too slow and has a completely useless scene and a useless song. Just start the story where it begins. There are several songs that add absolutely nothing to the story. Actually there are only 3+1 songs that are interesting and are useful: For The First Time In Forever (+ reprise), Love Is An Open Door and Let It Go. Honestly, there just were so many songs that made me want to scream edit, edit, EDIT!
You know who else adds nothing to the story? Olaf. He's a really annoying character that seems to be there only to be cute and sell merchandise. And guess what, Olaf isn't cute. With a better design and another voice actor he could be cute. Josh Gad's voice just doesn't make sense to me, and Olaf sounds like he should be voiced by Jack McBrayer. Honestly listen to this song from Wander Over Yonder and tell me he wouldn't be perfect for Olaf.
You'd think one thing I could say for certain about Frozen is that it'd be visually pleasing. Sure, it is. The snow and ice looks great, but you know who doesn't look great? Elsa and Anna. Many people have said this before me, but it's still true: they look bland, way too similar and to be honest, not very expressive. Also they stand out - or don't stand out - from the crowd. Side characters have their own special look while Else and Anna look exactly like each other and just don't sit well with the more interesting looking characters.
I'm old-school. I'm not a big fan of this kind of animation, give me 2D animation, maybe hand-drawn, and make the background or few special effects 3D. That's the dream. And computer generated animation always has those mistakes you can't make in 2D animation. In 3D there's mistakes like body parts clipping through each other. In 2D the most common mistakes are like colouring mistakes, stuff like that.
The story of Frozen is alright, very typical and very Disney, but I don't really see if there's a reason for the hype. Was it just advertised so much that everyone went to see it? Like was this genuinely because of the audience or was it just because it was that Disney movie?
☆☆☆☆☆
5 / 10
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