And no I'm not selling a Starbucks drink.
Watching FROZEN brought me back to the time when every Disney movie would guarantee a huge return in the box office.
Typical of all Disney movies, it's boy meets girl with some family values strewn across thanks to the strained relationship between the two newly minted Disney princesses Elsa and Anna. I liked this new dynamic in the film. It's been a while since we saw any kind of sibling relationship tackled in a Disney feature lenght film.
The whole romance thing is quite refreshing as well. It's not overly done here, in fact, the trope here is subverted. Instead of having a wedding at the end of the movie we are led to believe that there would be a wedding at the middle with princess Anna finding her true love and all that in the person of Prince Hans (a play on "The Snow Queen" author Hans Christian Andersen). Of course I don't want to spoil what happens next so you got to see it for yourself.
Another great thing for me about FROZEN is a more concentrated amount of Disney-ish songs. Tangled had a few memorable songs while Brave had barely any. FROZEN on the other hand followers the former. Not only do we get Disney-fied songs, we get them sung by such an amazing singer in Idina Menzel.
They also made Kristen Bell sing which is something to look forward to. And the songs, oh my gosh, they're just feel good. Hell, even the intro songs is reminsicent of past Disney films we've all grown up with and loved. I have this gut feeling that Disney designed FROZEN to be play-adaptation friendly. Remember this wasn't the case with some of the more recent stuff that Disney has put out.
The characters from FROZEN are easily relatable, well some of them anyway like Christoph who is pretty much the everyman character thrust into Anna's daring rescue mission. Olaf the iceman is just plain funny and adorable which makes him really likeable. Even Anna during the first half can be relatable. So far, the only ones that are hard to connect with are Hans and Elsa (both for specific reasons).
One of the best things about FROZEN is the fact that it's not what it looks like. The trailer is not really telling us everything which was nice. That clever little surprise gave me something to look forward to. Really nice touch not telling us everything from the trailer.
Oh and watch out for the following: a PLOT TWIST, the standard animated short at the beginning featuring Steamboat Mickey era Mickey Mouse and a so-so post-credit scene. And there's a couple of plotholes here but to hell with the plotholes, it's got classic Disney stuff in it.
VERDICT: FROZEN is a nice movie. Kids will love it because of the story, the humor and the 3D. Parents and even non-parent adults will enjoy it for the reasons mentioned above especially because of sentient snowman that wants to experience summer...
Suck in the songs, enjoy the visuals and just let your inner child reminisce about the good old days when Disney used to do traditional animation; they've already perfected 3D/ CGI animation anyway.
FROZEN opens November 27 and is distributed locally by WALT DISNEY STUDIOS PHILIPPINES
Here's the trailer btw.
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