With a combination of comedy, music, and touching moments, Frozen is one of the best movies Disney has made since the early 2000s (excluding Pixar). The animated film will delight audiences no matter their gender or age.
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The film, based on the book The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson (who wrote The Little Mermaid for which the movie is based on) is set in the fictional kingdom of Arendelle. The film follows Elsa, voiced by Idina Menzel, one of two daughters of the king and queen of Arendelle, who has special powers where she can freeze anything and create snow, and her sister Anna, voiced by Kristen Bell, who does not have powers. One night, Anna and Elsa decide to create a snowy wonderland in their palace, and Elsa accidently hits Anna with her freeze powers. Anna is healed but does not remember that Elsa has powers, and the king and queen decide to never let the two sisters see each other.
When the king and queen die, Elsa must take the throne, and the two sisters reunite at the coronation, where Anna meets Prince Hans, voiced by Santino Fontana, and they become engaged that night. Elsa does not approve of the engagement, causing a rift between the sisters, and she accidently exposes her powers, causing her to run away and create her own ice castle in the mountains. Now, Anna must find her sister with the help of Kristoff, an ice seller, voiced by Jonathan Groff, and his reindeer Sven. During their journey, they meet Olaf, a friendly naïve snowman voiced by Josh Gad, who joins them in search of Elsa so Elsa can reclaim her spot as Queen of Arendelle.
The whimsical tale is great from start to finish. One of the most surprising aspects of Frozen is the fantastic music. The cast each gets memorable songs that will have any moviegoer humming them after the film.
The writing is better than expected, as well as the direction. Directors/writers Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck took on the project after Disney passed on the film a few other times. The project actually originated in the 1940s, but the film never surfaced. In the 1990s, Walt Disney Feature Animation started work on the movie, but it came to a halt once again because the story didn’t fit. Finally in 2011, after the success of Disney’s Tangled, they decided it was time to make The Snow Queen into a film after all.
Most of Disney’s best animated movies in the 21st century came from Pixar, with such films as Up, WALL•E, and Toy Story 3, to name a few. Frozen, however, proves to be the Disney movie to shine through and prove its spot on the classic Disney movies list. Americans must like the film too, since it made over $96 million over the Thanksgiving weekend. The enchanting tale has a Broadway feel and a classic Disney backbone. It’s a movie that would fit right in with the Disney Renaissance period where movies like The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast were released, which are all cherished classic films. The beauty of the film is that it has a giant heart with witty comedy and sweet music. That’s the magic of Frozen.
