Frozen (2013)

I used to love watching animated movies. If there was a new one I just had to check it out as soon as possible. But something has changed and I’m not sure what it is. Even though every year has some great animated movies, there are a ton of horrible ones. I guess I have seen too many bad ones to be excited about what is being released. Last year I could not be bothered to check out movies like Planes or Turbo because the concept behind them just felt like marketing and nothing more. Movies just to sell toys. Still I did watch some animated movies. One of them was Epic and that film disappointed me and probably also made me a bit more cautious. Still I was quite intrigued by the teaser trailer for Frozen and since this is a Disney movie it could be good. Tangled was a lot of fun, so chances were this one would be enjoyable too. My trip to the cinema confirmed my hopes.

Frozen’s story felt very fresh and original. Although it is about princesses (two sisters as a matter of fact), it is not about them looking for love. It is more about their relationship and at the same time also a bit of coming of age film, where these princesses discover who they really are and what’s important to them. One of the princesses, Elsa (Idina Menzel), has a magical power which allows her to freeze things at will. It is a power she has to learn to control and that turns out to be very difficult. Meanwhile her sister, Anna (Kristen Bell), is dealing with the fact she wasn’t allowed to play with her sister anymore. She was not able to form a bond with her sibling. When it is time for Elsa to become queen things don’t go as planned and both sisters deal with that in their own way.

There are a lot of things to love about this movie. Besides the story, the characters are a joy to watch, with the standout being the snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) who provides some big laughs. Everything looks beautiful and the sequence in which Elsa builds a castle from ice is stunning to watch. As this is a Disney movie it has a lot of memorable songs (the fact that the kids are still singing some says enough). I also liked the fact that this movie does not take the expected route when it comes to love. If you look at the recent Walt Disney movies (The Princess and the Frog, Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph (have not seen Winnie the Pooh)) you can see they really have been putting out memorable movies again and it has restored a bit of my growing boredom with animated features.