Rating: 4 Stars Out of 4, Thumbs Up.
Rated PG For Some Action And Mild Rude Humor.
1hr 42min/102min.
Olaf: "Who's the funny-looking donkey?"
Anna: "That's Sven."
Olaf: "Uh-huh, and who's the reindeer?"
2013 saw a nice mix of animated films. We had the overrated but pleasant The Croods, The superior sequel Despicable Me 2, The polarizing Epic and the fun Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2. All of these films received positive reviews from me, but none of them received 4 Stars from me. Then Frozen came along. Walking out of the theater when the film was over, the smile on my face was so big, that I wanted to stick around for the next showing. I adore this film. Disney has come along at the end of every year to give us a 4 star family/animated film. 2010 was Tangled. 2011 was The Muppets. 2012 was Wreck-It-Ralph. 2013 has Frozen. The day after I saw the film, it became both my favorite Disney film of all time and my favorite animated film, quite possibly of all time.
The film follows the story of two sisters, Elsa(Idina Menzel) and Anna(Kristen Bell) have grown apart. This is due to an incident when they were children where Elsa accidentally hit Anna with a shot of ice from her powers. Elsa does have ice powers but sadly can't use them in front of Anna anymore. This causes Elsa to stay in her room for the ongoing years. On day, the gates to the castle open and town members start flowing in. However, during the party, Elsa gets distraught and exposes her powers. She then runs off into the mountains and builds an ice castle with her powers and subsequently brings Winter to the town. Anna, with the help of Kristof(Jonathon Giddof) the reindeer Sven and Olaf(Josh Gad) the snowman travel to the mountains to bring Summer back to the town and Elsa back home.
The animation in this film is masterful. This is the most gorgeous animation I have seen. The colors burst off the screen with aplomb. The scene that really solidifies the animation is approximately 30 minutes in. When Elsa builds her Ice castle, she stomps down on the ground and a snowflake appears, quickly expanding into the castle. When she stomps, the screen burst into something so beautiful, that it's hard for me to put it into words.
The characters are ultimately, what holds the film together. Let's look at Anna. Anna(voiced beautifully by Kristen Bell) is the central heroine. This is a character that is well rounded. This is one that you want to follow. There are scenes, where she shows emotion, where she cries, etc. The scene in the beginning, where she keeps asking Elsa to come out of her room, at first she's all excited to play with her, but as Anna grows up, she has given up, as she sits at the door, crying, because her sister won't come out. She's also delightfully funny and quirky.
I want to tell you right now, that Elsa is not a villain. She runs off because, she doesn't know how to deal with her powers fully yet. She's scared, she doesn't want to go back to the town because the people are angry at her. She is also a well done character. Kristof and Sven are a fun duo together, with Sven reminding me of the horse from Tangled. Speaking of Tangled, Rapunzel and the prince make a cameo in the film, during the scene where the townspeople are being let in, they enter from the left of the screen. But of course, the standout of the whole movie is Olaf. Voiced wonderfully by Josh Gad, Olaf is the cutest and funniest of the film. Olaf embodies the childlike wonder in all of us.
The musical numbers are fantastic, with the best being Let It Go, as Elsa builds her castle. I do however have one criticism, and it doesn't have to do with the film, but the song. At the end, during the credits, the song is being played, but it's sung by Demi Lovato. Really? Did we really need this to happen? When she covers this song A. She over harmonizes it so much, it's not even a real song anymore and B. It completely ruins the impact of the original song. The song showed that Elsa wasn't afraid anymore. When Demi Lovato covers it, it shows that.....she can sing. Yay.
Frozen is a masterpiece. I saw this with a buddy of mine who didn't care for it. "It was a giant Disney Cliche" he said. It is far from that. It's a great female empowerment story. Not like Spring Breakers. That was a female empowerment story, but done in a completely different way. I raise my glass to you Disney, You've made me so proud. I'm looking forward, to the next masterpiece you have awaiting me late 2014.Frozen(2013) Blu-ray Review
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Special Features
-Featurettes:
---D'Frosted: Disney's Journey From Hans Christen Anderson To Frozen
-Deleted Scenes
-4 Music Videos
-Get A Horse! Theatrical Short
-Original Theatrical Teaser
The Film: ****
The Picture Quality: ****
The Sound Quality: ****
Special Features: ***1/2
Overall: ****-Highly Recommended
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