Well, as promised, here my thoughts. Careful, though, I intend to go into great detail about the movie. If you haven’t watched it yet, I suggest to leave, or this will ruin the experience for you. I also warn you if you love the movie. For me, it was very much a mixed bag, and I will mostly try to figure out why I wasn’t as enchanted as I was and still am of my favourite Disney Princess Movies.

1. The Animation

Let’s start with the positive: The animation is gorgeous! When I saw the scene with the ship sinking in the storm, I kept thinking “wow”. And the snow scenes…let’s put it this way: I watched “Rise of the Guardians” just a couple of days ago, and while it is very impressive too, it looks only half as good as “Frozen”. It is kind of expected of Disney to deliver top-notch work, but in this case, they outdid themselves. Towards the end of the movie, I kept wishing for a cup of cacao just from looking at all this snow. My only nit-pick is that some character designs go a little bit too cartoony for my taste. Yeah, I know, odd complain, but it is more or less the same I had concerning “Brave”. They put so much work into creating realistic landscapes, that it always looks odd when the character design is not following the same standard. Which doesn’t mean that I think that they should put less effort in the backgrounds, or that I want them trying to copy reality. But I believe that they should try balance the styles out a little bit better. They did it perfectly with “Tangled”, so it is not impossible.


2. The Music

I am always complaining about the songs in “The Princess and the Frog”. But even this movie never managed to make me think: “Oh god, they are singing again!” This time around, I reached this point. Don’t get me wrong, “Frozen” has some really good songs, some of them good enough to rival Disney's best, but they are not used particularly smart. But let’s have a look at each of them separately.

“Frozen Heart” is easily the second best song of the movie, it is epic, while subtly foreshadowing what will happen later on. It is also a missed opportunity. Remember how “Beauty and the Beast” used “Belle” to introduce not only Belle but also the whole village? Or how the sailor song at the beginning of “The Little Mermaid” leads to the fish escaping and the camera following him down to the world of the merpeople? Either variant, expanding the song so that we not only see the ice cutters but also the town and the people living there, or concluding it by showing them bringing their ice down to a slightly different world would have worked. Instead the scene suddenly ends and we are left with two entirely different characters. It is as if the movie is starting a second time.

I have three problems with “Do you want to build a snowman”, even though I love the tune in itself. One, it is too Anna-centric. I would have preferred to see an equal number of Anna and Elsa scenes in this sequence. And two…I actually don’t need the words. I think this would have been way more powerful if they had kept it a little bit shorter and shown some poignant scenes with some fitting instrumentals. And three, of all the songs which crowd at the start of the movie, this is the most useless one.

“For the first time in Forever” I can take or leave. It is a nice song (though it sounds like it was written for Wicked), but again, I would like it better if Elsa had a bigger part…and if Anna’s dreams were a little bit different. I love the reprise, though. It added to the story AND was even about involving the two sisters.

“Love is an open door” I found very charming, but I hate how it was used in the context of the story. Honestly, I feel a little bit uncomfortable with Disney practically mocking their own movies this way. But that is something I will discuss further when I talk about the story. For the purpose of the story they tried to tell, I think the cut song “You’re you” would have worked better, because in this one, Hans keeps telling Anna how she should feel, and keeps going on about her faults, even if he does it in a charming way. "Love is an open door" is such a heartfelt song, using it for anything other than a real love story is just a bad idea all around.

“Let it go” is easily the best song of the movie, not just because it is the catchiest one, but also because it is used perfectly. The whole scene is imho the best of the movie. My only complaint: Elsa doesn’t really “let it go”. She is still controlled by her fears the very next scene.

“Reindeers are better than people” is another one I can take or leave. Or, to be more precise, I would take it if Kristoff’s dislike of people would be a more important plot point, but since it doesn’t really matter on the long run, they could have left it out. It’s so short, though, that it doesn’t make much of a difference.

“In Summer” made me laugh, from start to finish. But, again, it added nothing to the movie. Even worse, it was slowing it down. As funny as it was, I kept thinking “do I really need to know so much about a snowman?” and “Can’t we go back to the actual story?”

I hated “Fixer upper” – that was the point at which I kept thinking “please, don’t sing”. It was totally grating in the situation…Anna is dying and we get such an upbeat, stupid song. I have the feeling that it was mostly there because they had the feeling that they needed at least one song before the end.

Looking at this list, there was simply an overload on songs in the first half of the movie and a total lack towards the end. Especially a lack of meaningful songs. The standard Disney Princess movie has an introduction song (in this case “Frozen Heart”), one I want song (This one has three, “Do you want to build a snowman”, “For the first time in forever” and “Let it go”), one love song (“love is an open door”), a villain song (which Frozen lacks) and one fun song (Frozen has three…that are two too many!). The whole construct is off-balance, both in the kind of songs they sing, and the way they are used, with most of them crowding each other at the start, while towards the end, there are only a couple of “fun songs”.


3. The Characters

Anna is supposed to be the main lead, but to be honest, I think she is fairly boring. I was ready to defend her from everyone who said that she is just another version of Rapunzel, but that is exactly what she is. With the difference that what is charming with Rapunzel makes Anna look like a diz. Yes, she grew up mostly closed off from the world, but there are still servants in the castle. It is not like her only human contact is one evil person like it was the case with Rapunzel. And while Rapunzel is overly excited sometimes, too, she never would be stupid enough to ride out into the snow in nothing but a ball dress. Anna is just the kind of character I keep wondering why I should be routing for. It is not like I dislike her, she is cute and all that, but I like smart characters, and Anna is everything but smart.

Elsa on the other hand is by far the most compelling character. I kept wishing that the movie were more about her and less about Anna. We see so many scenes with Anna being sad about not being able to be with Elsa, but nearly none concerning how Elsa feels towards Anna. It is always about how she feels about her powers, never that she wished to be with Anna (or any humans) again. As much as I like Elsa I wish she would be about a little bit more than just her powers.

Kristoff is okay. I honestly have no idea why they spend so much time on his backstory, because the fact that he grow up alone and has a low opinion of humans has next to no bearing on the story. His relationship with Sven is cute, but Sven is not a particular outstanding sidekick either. He is obviously based on Maximus, but Maximus was so great because he had his own story, his own motivation. Sven is just there. Not in a bad way, since he does have a function in the story, but he is basically just a means of transport with one gag, his love for carrots, thrown in.

Olav was mostly not annoying. That is the good news. The bad news is that he didn’t add anything to the story aside from a little physical humour I could have done without and a lot of exposition. Especially towards the end he was a running commentary about everything what should be clear just from looking at the screen.

Hans just doesn’t make sense. I guess he worked better than a character like Clayton, because it is at least believable that everyone would fall for his charm. But as soon as he reveals his true character, a lot of his actions don’t make any sense in hindsight. He had the opportunity to let Elsa die at this point multiple times, so why didn’t he? If he is really so smart about pretending to be someone else, why doesn’t he keep pretending until the very end, waiting until Anna is really dead before he makes his move? To be honest, I think this story didn’t need either a love story or a villain.


4. The Story

I really love the fact that they put the relationship between two sisters in the focus of the movie. But I feel that they didn’t do enough with the set-up they had. For example, there were no scene at all which showed Elsa actually acting as a queen, having to made responsible decisions. We are told that she was raised to be the stiff, controlled one, but we never really see that much of it unless it was related to her magic. And the character should be more than just her magic. They also missed an opportunity with Anna. Wouldn’t it have more sense if she had been the sister who was allowed everything? Who would go out, have contact with other people? The heart of the kingdom, so to speak, while Elsa was raised to be the brain? With everyone loving Anna but not believing that she would be fit to deal with anything akin to responsibilities? It would have made Anna a more unique character in the line-up than she ended up to be. But more important, it would have made the relationship of the sisters more real. Because that one sister is magic, that never happens in real live. But that the older one ends up being the responsible one, while the younger one ends up more spoiled, while both sisters are jealous of each other, the older one because she would like to have the same freedoms and the younger one because she wants to be how the “better” sister, that is a dynamic you’ll find again and again.

The love story – let’s put it this way: Either leave it out, or do it right. I am not a fan of Disney basically acting ashamed of their older movies. Not saying that I am against them developing the way they portray relationships. But I can really do without the commentary. Instead I would have preferred if they had made clear that just because there is mutual love between two people it doesn’t mean that the relationship will be perfect. For example, what if Hans had been honestly in love with Anna, but the kiss hadn’t been enough to rescue her (because, well, it is just a kiss, given in love or not), and he had then tried to kill Elsa out of anger and feelings of revenge. It would have created a bittersweet ending when Anna is forced to step in the path of the man she loves to protect the sister she loves just as much.

What I loved about the movie was the fact that Anna was the one who had to do the act of true love. I was kind of expecting that it would be the love between her and her sister which would rescue her, but I expected Elsa being the one to act, not Anna. This part was outstanding.

When it comes to Kristoff and Anna…I was honestly surprised when everyone suddenly started to sprout exposition that the two are in love. Really? When did that happen? I only saw friendship and camaraderie. In fact, when Kristoff expressed his love for ice, I was kind of expecting that he would fall for Elsa eventually. Since he is basically a loner, he would have been a great fit for her. But he and Anna? Talk about two people which have nothing in common.

It is doubly grating considering that the built up for Anna and Hans was so much better, so much more convincing. Don’t get me wrong, he made my spider senses ping the moment he mentioned all his older brothers. So I was not particularly surprised when he turned, but I was keep wishing that it wouldn’t happen. I also question the decision to make the foreigners the villains. It seemed some kind of cop-out, as if Disney was afraid to make the people of the town truly turn against Elsa. As if they were afraid to make the audience cry. At no point during the movie, I really felt for any of the characters. Every time I was in “danger” to actually be touched by anything on screen, they jumped to a different scene or threw in a joke. Towards the end I kept wishing that Olav would melt, just to give me a little bit emotions to feel. The scene when Anna “dies”….it was too short. Visually stunning, but it didn’t make me cry. And I normally cry about nearly everything, even about Cinderella’s ripped dress.

There is a lot to love about the movie and the story. I love the ice palace, I love the scenes between the sisters, I love the finale. But the way to get there is often unnecessarily contrived, and the pacing is terrible. A lot of time is spend to set up situations, which are then resolved way too quickly. I see half a dozen possibilities to make this a simpler, but more poignant story. And I guess, this is my main problem with the story. The whole time I sat in the cinema, I kept rewriting it in my head.


5. The relation to the original story

The Snow Queen is a fairy tale about Gerda, who wants to rescue her brother Kai from the Snow Queen and experiences a lot of adventures along the way. I think the decision to make the Brother and the Snow Queen one character was a good one. As was focussing on the actually Snow Queen part of the story while ignoring all the side-adventures Gerda experiences. But I wish they had paid more attention to the symbolic aspects of the story, though my main complaint is that Anna is no replacement for Gerda. Gerda is a competent heroine while Anna…isn’t. Let’s face it, Kristof is not in the movie as love interest, he is in the movie because the makers couldn’t imagine that Anna would travel the snow alone. And, yes, the Anna they created wouldn’t be able to survive. But why didn’t they create a character like Gerda, who is smart enough to deal with the cold weather and the dangers she encounters?

5. The Conclusion

Overall, I liked the movie, but in the end, the story is always the most important part for me, and this one has a lot of problems. I already know that the movie will never be one of my favs. I have no desire to see it a second time (to compare, I watched “Beauty and the Beast” three times when it was initially released, “Tangled” two times), and I don’t think that I will rewatch it that often when the DVD is available. But I wouldn’t put it in the bottom group on my list either. I ranges somewhere in the middle. Definitely worth a watch, definitely the best movie of the year, but not one which managed to touch my heart like some others movies did.