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Sunday, January 19, 2014

Frozen



Frozen has gone through a theatrical run I have never seen before. The first week it did relatively bad, then it jumps to number one off and on throughout the month. I saw this 2 months after the release and the theater was still pretty crowded. I believe this movie gained more by word of mouth than it did with the actual marketing because it was awful.

Seeing the original concept art a year ago made me fairly confident in this film. It looked beautiful. Then the trailers came out and I had a lot of doubt for it, as did everyone else. It really looked like a kiddy version of Wicked and would go through so many cliches. This was mainly my list of predictions I had:
  1.  Olaf would be the next Jar-Jar Binks or Mater
  2. Some spur of the moment romance
  3. Elsa would be this bitchy, bland villan
  4. This would be Disney's attempt at Wicked and that's why they casted the two leads from that show.
  5. Sven the reindeer would just be another Maximus from Tangled
  6. Speaking of Tangled, it was just going to copy and paste a lot of the elements that worked well in that film. 
I really thought this movie would crash and burn. After hearing countless great things about it, I thought I would finally see it.  For the most part I was wrong. Frozen was pretty solid. I wouldn't go as far as to say it is as fantastic as Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid. It was good, but not super amazing. To put it this way, I don't know if I will willingly want to see this again. With most other Disney films, I can watch them a number of times and not get sick of them.

Possible spoilers! 

I know this is an animated film, but I couldn't get over questioning some of it. If Elsa and Anna pretty much lived in isolation their entire lives, wouldn't that have some negative effect on their social behavior? How would they be able to learn to interact with the public of they would eventually have to rule the kingdom? Why did they have to keep Elsa locked up for her powers and how did she even get them in the first place? When their parents died, it made Elsa very upset, so why didn't she start a eternal winter then? Why couldn't they let Anna go outside the castle if nothing is wrong with her? I guess they show the aftermath of their isolation  in some way. Anna becomes quickly attached to others after being departed from them for so long while Elsa pushes them away and gets anxious around them. I know, random conspiracy theories, I'm crazy.

In terms of the movie itself there were few things I disliked about it. First, the musical numbers were pretty corny. For being made by such a talented team, they didn't feel as creative. I miss the Alan Menken full orchestra numbers that you could play over and over again. These pop songs blasting the electric guitar in this movie and Tangled are not for me. All of the praise has mostly been going to "Let it go" and while I think it is a good song, I'm not totally in love with it. Mostly because it is very similar to "Defying Gravity" and some of the wording is a bit weird. Elsa, herself, is a good character but I don't think she got as much screen time as her sister to fully branch out. Idina Menzel still did a great job with the acting and her design was flawless. Anna could have been a little better. Most of the movie she was pretty annoying. Nothing about her really stood out that would make me like her compared to other princesses. The whole twist about Hans I somewhat expected. I wouldn't consider Hans a villain, just a douche bag. A very bland one at that.

On Facebook, I have been seeing the countless images and statuses saying that "Frozen is the first Disney movie to show that you don't need a man." I disagree with this completely. First of all, Merida in Brave didn't even have a love interest. Mulan didn't do anything just for Shang's attention, she did it for her country. Even though most of Pocahontas's motivation was to be with John Smith, she didn't end up with him in the end even after saving him. I could go on, but this isn't new. We have been seeing the anti-love at first sight relationship for a while now. Kristoff and Anna end up together by the end of the movie. She relied on his help for the most part. Even after Hans betrayed her, she still went to him almost immediately. I do like the one of the messages they had in this film. Some men are out there to hurt girls, like Hans did, and there's some you have to get to know better to admire their qualities, like Kristoff.

I also like the other message in this film that love does not always have to be romantic. There is love you would feel between a family member and sometimes that is a lot stronger. I would never think that Olaf the fucking talking snowman would say the best quote in this movie, "love is putting other's needs before yours." That and "Oh, look! I've been impaled." :)

I wasn't expecting to laugh this much with this movie. It wasn't even funny because it was so stupid and corny. It legitimately had good one-liners and slapstick. The animation could have been a little better. As mentioned before I liked Elsa's design but I'm not sure if I like these characters looking like Precious Moments dolls. Some of the background didn't look all the way finished and appeared flat. As many have said before, they nailed down the movement of the snow animation and it looked real.

Overall, this was definitely "don't judge a book by its cover" movie. The marketing almost killed this and Disney needs to go back to how they used to do their trailers and aiming at kids and adults. I was definitely surprised by the balance of drama and comedy and creating a innovative fairy tale.


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