Looneymanthegreat's Movie Review of Frozen (2013)

Not Bad; but a Little Cold
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 06/21/14

My feelings on Frozen are mixed. The movie is seemingly the perfect Disney Princess movie, with all of the carefully laid out good messages and role models that parents have been craving lately, but I’m not quite buying it. The movies plot almost seems a tiny bit too carefully calculated for its own good. The center message is right on about relationships, yet it never fully connects emotionally. Its songs are pretty, but none of them really knock it out of the park. There’s nothing really that bad about it, but I’ve watched it three times already, and each time I like it a little bit less.

One of the better songs in the movie, Fixer Upper, Is a humorous song about how Kristoff, Anna’s potential love interest, is a solid romantic option, but she’ll have to “fix him up a little.” It’s quite funny, but the songs momentum is interrupted by a tone shift and the following lyrics:

"We’re not saying you can change her, ‘cause people don’t really change
We’re only saying that love’s a force that’s powerful and strange
People make bad choices if they’re mad, or scared, or stressed
Throw a little love their way (throw a little love their way) and you’ll bring out their best"

This is a clarification of themes that serves to make sure that the audience understands that you’re not supposed to go into a relationship trying to change someone; this is a good thing. Alas, it also serves to put to a halt the song momentum, and to pull the audience right out of the story. It sounds less like something an overbearing troll family would say, and more of what Disney Worlds PR department would say. It’s an example of trying to hard to make sure you have a PC message, something that happens a lot in Frozen. It feels less like a real story, and more like a story with an empowering message to please the mommy bloggers.

The music is kind of the last nail in the, “Meh,” coffin for me. Music in movies like this is supposed to be fun and upbeat. Frozen doesn’t really have a “Hakuna Mattata,” or a “Bear Necessities.” The overall feel is very Broadway, and that doesn’t really serve the cinematic medium. Movie music is supposed to pull us in to the story, but the offering here left me out in the cold. The result is that, sense so many of the movies ideas and feelings are portrayed through song, I never really connected with the characters, or really cared about them at all.

Don’t get me wrong, the movies message is fantastic. It’s great that little Disney Princess fans can have a movie that actually tries to teach them how real-world relationships work. But Frozen is not for me. It’s a passable movie, but it doesn’t hold a candle to other Disney Princess brand flicks, especially not The Princess and the Frog, which accomplished the same thing to better effect. It’s good for your daughter, just not for this guy.