Meera’s Movie Reviews – Frozen

Hey everyone, Meera again with a review for Frozen.  This is an extra early review for this movie since it doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks. Seriously, I haven’t even started seeing commercials for it yet.  Since this is early and I really don’t want to give anything away, I’m just going to say SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS, just to be safe.  I absolutely loved this movie for so many different reasons.  I’ll tell you right now, I’m totally Disney biased and am such a sucker for just about anything they release, so I don’t know how an actual critique of this movie will be.  So before I get into this, I’ll do a little disclaimer.  I pretty much had very medium expectations for this movie before I saw it.  Since I’ve only seen maybe two trailers prior and I had absolutely no idea what the story was about or what I was getting.  All I saw was a snowman, a reindeer, two princesses and the fact that it’s the newest Disney movie.  With all this in mind, I went to the theater not super excited, but that kind of excited you get when you get free stuff. 

Now about the actual movie, I think it was absolutely amazing!  It managed to capture the essence of old favorite Disney classics and as you sit there watching it, you really can’t help but feel like a kid again watching a brand new Disney princess singing her heart out on the screen.  They definitely did their usual thing by picking a style of music and running through the movie with it.  Sleeping Beauty had an opera style, The Princess and The Frog had a New Orleans/Cajun style, and Frozen, at least in my opinion really had a Broadway feel to their songs.  I can really see this transitioning well to the stage.  And on the topic of songs, just a teaser, this movie has one of the saddest summer songs I’ve ever heard in my life.  Voices were amazing. They had Idina Menzel singing and I am so proud that I was able to recognize it. I kept thinking, “I know this voice! I know this voice!”  That may be why I can really see this on stage.  Her voice is just perfect for it.

Story and characters really were the strongest element in Frozen.  The story actually takes place during the summer and an eternal winter is cast over the land.  To be honest, once I got that feeling of a classic Disney princess movie, I was expecting a similar formula.  The whole, “princess on a quest/love story” formula, but it was different. I remember a while back, just after Tangled was released, Disney stated that they were going to change things up.  It really didn’t hit me just how they changed until I saw this movie.  They moved from a formula of “Romantic Love” and instead are really focusing on “Familial Love”.  It was extremely evident in Brave and was just solidified in Frozen.  An amazing thing happened while I was watching it.  About half way through the movie, I realized that I’d seen something like this before.  Turns out, it was based on a fairy tale entitled “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson and I remembered a version of the story from a 1995 animated adaptation by the same name.  Seriously, my biggest geek moment during this movie was watching it and knowing who the author was before seeing the credits.  This is another reason the movie will really leave you with a sense of nostalgia.  It’s one of Disney’s fairy tales, taken from one of the most well-known authors, who also wrote The Little Mermaid. However, with Disney’s reputation with fairy tales, I’m really interested to see how the original story is.  If it’s as different as The Little Mermaid was from its original story then I’m really nervous.  Okay, enough about me geeking out over fairy tale authors and on to the characters.  You almost instantly love them, especially Olaf the snowman. He was mainly in the story to serve at comic relief, but he’s also a link between the sisters’ childhood and present selves.  He was hilarious! While you’re watching, just look at his facial expressions.  He’s such a happy character and you just can’t help but like him. The human characters are great an all. There’s the strong female lead and her conflicts with others that drive the story, and that’s great, but to me, Olaf stole the show from the moment we hear him speak.  The princesses, Anna and Elsa, are great additions to the Disney princess lineup. They show all the markings of the others in that category like strength and guts. I would comment on the animation and graphics, which were beautiful by the way, but I get the feeling that we have all come to expect excellence in the animation/graphics department from Disney. 

Overall, definitely will give Frozen a 5 out of 5! It was just amazing. It really takes you back, for those who grew up with classic Disney movies, and based on the reactions in the theater, it was truly a beautiful, magical, delight for children just starting their Disney journey.

How was this review? I feel like I said “Disney” in just about every sentence and I tried my best to get a good review across without revealing anything vital. I really hope you enjoy watching it! Hopefully, if my plans for this weekend work out, I may do Thor 2.  But I will warn you, I will be geeking out like crazy because LOKI!

So what have we learned about Meera from these reviews? She’s a sci-fi and fairy tale/mythology geek who loves Disney, thinks the book is better, and unashamedly has a serious weakness for villains and British men.