Review: Frozen

Okay, okay, so I’m a bit late to the ‘Frozen’ party, but better late than never and in this case it was more than worth the wait!

I’m a massive Disney fan. I grew up watching all the classics like the Lion King, Hercules, Aladdin, you know the ones. My favourite Disney film ever is Beauty and the Beast. So, I got pretty excited when I found out that Disney were reformulating the classic princess fairy tale formula, bringing it back with Princess and the Frog back in 2009. Admittedly, I haven’t seen it yet, but I did manage to get round to seeing Tangled, and more recently, Frozen.

I didn’t really know a lot about the film before I came to watch it, I’d seen the trailer once or twice and knew the songs from having them sung at me from different people. A few people had told me that I needed to see it, and about twenty minutes into the movie I knew why. It’s one of those films that’s just really easy to watch. At the heart of it, it is a Disney film. It has hugely likable characters, a charming leading princess, and an inspirational lesson at the core, with a happy ending.

The story pretty much follows the Disney tradition of its fairy tales. It was funny, entertaining, enjoyable and just really easy to watch. Olaf was easily my favourite character and had me in stitches for most of the movie. The only thing is I wish I’d watched it a bit earlier, and maybe seen it at the cinema. It’s kind of like watching a Christmas movie when it’s not Christmas, just feels a bit wrong. But it’s the perfect film for winter/Christmas time. I’ll definitely be cracking it out with a hot chocolate when its a bit colder! The film is also really pretty, in an kind of you forget that your watching animation kind of way. It’s really detailed and the time and effort that has gone into creating this whole ‘frozen’ landscape is amazing.

One of the main reasons I knew Frozen was so popular was from its dominance in the iTunes chart. Let It Go has been up in the top ten for a few weeks now, and accidentally clicking the preview whilst looking for other songs has lead to me being stuck with ‘let it go, let it gooooo’ in my head for a good few hours. After hearing snippets of the song and people singing it at work, I was looking forward to seeing it within the film. It didn’t disappoint. I’m not normally a huge fan of musicals, and can sometimes find the occasional musical numbers a bit cringe worthy, but I really liked this scene. It occurs when Elsa flees from her town because her secret powers have been revealed to everyone and she becomes an outcast. In this scene she embraces her differences and plays with her powers, becoming a sassy snow queen. You can’t help but like her and root for her really. Elsa is voiced by Idina Menzel, an incredible broadway performer. I think the fact that its her performing the character of Elsa really adds something to her character and her performance of Let It Go is just amazing vocally. Another enjoyable moment is Olaf’s solo, which had me pretty much crying with laughter!

I’d suggest this film to anyone who likes something thats easy to watch, light hearted, and just has good old Disney style morals to them that root back to just being a good, nice person and having good family values! I also really liked the ending, which was a bit of a twist on the traditional happy endings that are so often associated with fairy tales, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone so I’ll let you go and have a look for yourself!

Frozen was the perfect balance of melody, laughter, sadness and inspiration to have pretty much something for everyone in it. It’s enjoyable for kids, and easy to watch as adults. It’s full of Disney’s normal intelligence that still offers something to the adult viewer, without making you feel like your watching a kids film.

Even though the first section of the film is pretty heavily laden with musical numbers (which I’ll admit, did annoy me a little bit) you soon forget that as you follow Anna on her journey. The story really focuses on delivering good, strong messages about individuality, and how that should be celebrated and expressed, which is something I also really enjoyed about it. I think at the root of the film are really good messages about how to be a good person and in the case of Anna and Elsa, a good sister.

Have any of you guys seen Frozen yet? What did you think? Let me know! 🙂