Random Review/Analysis: Frozen *spoilers*

Two songs I had stuck in my head throughout this movie were "Ice Ice, Baby" and "True Love." Yeah, none of the songs that I just heard were in my head, just those stupid songs. Yet they fit pretty well. Well, here we have Disney pull out another animated film after their huge flop with "Planes" this year. And what do you know, John Lasseter was executive producer which means that this was kind of a collaboration between the Disney and Pixar staff. This is seen from the short flick before the film where it has the Mickey Mouse cartoon that has a recent update and toys with the fourth wall. But how does the main film hold up?

This movie is like a conglomeration of Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, and Wicked. You've first got this film trying to emulate Tangled with Anna looking like Rapunzel and the whole theme of freedom along with true love. Then Beauty and the Beast is seen with the whole idea of prejudice against this film's equivalent of the Beast while Belle, or Anna, is trying to figure out how to make things right. However, I think Wicked is the most similar out of all of these. Wicked has this plot featuring Elphaba, the witch, who is portrayed as an odd person who has strange powers she can't' control, like Elsa. And Anna is pretty much Glinda. So the plots are similar in that both Elphaba and Elsa have powers that people fear and they both reject the societal limits placed upon them and are shunned because of that. Of course, the plots are somewhat different but the main idea still stands. What I find funny is that both Wicked and Frozen have this song that everyone remembers. For Wicked, it's Defying Gravity and Frozen has Let It Go. They pretty much say the same thing though personally I like Defying Gravity better because of how it has a great tune and doesn't just explicitly state Elphaba's mood at the time.

In that regard, I like Wicked a lot more than I liked Frozen. While Frozen was a great movie, Wicked is my favorite musical of all time. Wicked manages to make us sympathize with the villain in Wizard of Oz. Wicked has its comedy and dramatic moments so greatly intertwined that it depicts the mood perfectly. The orchestral score and the acting of Wicked made it so special to me while the two segments were perfectly paced to give us the correct amount of atmosphere and mood. Frozen is constricted and thus mood is given out by songs instead. Wicked has time to build up its story and has a narrative that is dead-set on telling Elphaba's perspective through all of the unfortunate events whereas Frozen focuses instead on Anna.

Another thing I noticed is that Frozen tries way too hard to be Tangled. Nevermind that the main protagonists seem similar, there are still a few quirks about that just pop up. The guy in that movie was just like Kristoff and the reindeer is just like the horse in that it tries to be a dog. And no, I haven't read the Snow Queen so I'm not gonna comment on the apparent differences between the book and the screen.

But enough of comparing it to Wicked and Tangled, I still need to judge Frozen for its individual accomplishment. All I can say is the first act was rushed, the second act was solid, and the third act was cliched and drawn out. The exposition of this tale features a brief look on Elsa's and Anna's life, their parents die quickly, song talks about Elsa's reclusive mood, and then we just jump to the coronation. I think the staff was trying to pull Up's emotional 4-minute masterpiece yet the song didn't quite portray the life of Elsa and Anna. Like what did Anna do the entire time? Twiddle her thumbs? Look at the clock? With Up, you get the whole picture and its ambiguous enough while leaving in the funeral to give the full dramatic impact. You get the ship capsizing and then it just jumps back to the castle to show Elsa and Anna. I would've wished this would be handled a bit better but I notice that many animated films are simply bound by the time constraint given on the entire project. Anyways, the coronation happens, true love arrives but not before Anna's song, Elsa revealed as monster, and she runs away which means Anna has to find her. I won't comment on the whole true love until later but it's kinda stupid as Kristoff said a lot. Also, how is it that Anna has this obligation to go find Elsa? She's not even that emotionally connected with Elsa? I dunno, many people would hold grudges for this kind of action. Anna also seems rather comfortable around strangers even though she's been locked up in her castle the entire time. And why is it that Elsa decides to be friendly to Anna after all these years now? The whole psychology of this ordeal seems glossed over though this is Disney we are talking about. Disney tends to just rush the first act just to get to the meat of the movie. But Up still managed to convey the psychological loss Carl felt after losing Ellie and his socially awkward state.

The second act is where the movie shines. You've got the song everybody loves and then Anna goes on her journey with Kristoff to the mountain. Kristoff is a really funny character and this entire act is just focused on the comedy. Olaf is also there for comedic effect and this entire segment really has a good flavor. Anyways, the true love guy is running the castle but they go after the castle in the end. Anna gets "frozen" and Kristoff takes her to the trolls. One thing that bugs me is that the trolls have a different character from the beginning. Yet again, they are there for comedic effect. Elsa gets caught by the true love guy and gets tossed into jail and Anna must be saved by an act of "true love." Kristoff delivers Anna to the castle where true love guy is bad guy.

The third act is where it gets cliched trying to break cliches. Sure the true love guy is shown to be not good and sure the act of true love is from Elsa, not Kristoff. But Anna gets with Kristoff, like we knew after they said marrying on the first day is stupid like a million times and because of the character development, the day is saved, Elsa can run her kingdom now, true love guy is caught, and Olaf lives. Yay? Yeah, this ending is one of those happy ending cliches. We know it's gonna be happy so there's the happy ending. Animated movies tend to be too happy in the end but Pixar broke this formula a long time ago. Up had an unexpected resolution, Wall-e had a resolution based on the robots and the eventual future, and Toy Story 3 had the most perfect ending ever. This ending was so boring that it's probably the thing I hate most about this movie.

But then there's the whole true love thing. I like how Disney points out how stupid it is to marry after one day yet Anna loves Kristoff after only one day. It was pretty obvious that Prince Charming was not gonna go for Anna and Kristoff would become the eventual lover. Disney

 tried to break the old cliche that it usually falls under, but piles on another cliche to counteract that. Yeah, sure Kristoff and Anna had time for their relationship to develop but it was still one day. And like I say, true love doesn't exist.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The songs were decent, though not memorable, the animation was gorgeous, the humor was spot on, the dramatic moments were great in the second act, and the characters were engaging. I never like short musicals like this usually since it uses its precious time to show song after song about the mood but somehow it worked out fine. This is definitely a movie that didn't need all of the songs and could go the Pixar route and tell the story through the music, the dialogue, and the pauses.

When I first saw the trailers for the movie, I thought that this would be pretty bad. All we saw was Olaf being stupid. And then the ratings rolled in and I was astonished that Frozen would win two Oscars this year. So I figured they pulled another Wreck-It Ralph. While I think Wreck-It Ralph is the superior Disney movie, this movie is still great. I take comfort knowing that Disney is slowly working its way to Pixar's legendary masterpiece period and hope the future will give us better movies. Overall, this was a good movie though not as good as most people said it was and well worth my time and money.

Final Rating: 8/10