Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 17/20; Abbey: 18/20; Emma: 17/20; Buster: dnr)
Plot: Princess Anna doesn't understand why her fellow orphaned princess--Princess Elsa--has shut her out and started wearing gloves all the time and not leaving her princess room. During Princess Elsa's coronation, the princess gates are opened so that the commoners can see what princess dresses Princess Elsa and Princess Anna are going to wear as princess. Princess princess burly men princess princess princess snowman princess princess reindeer thing princess. Princess princess? Princess! Titular.
I had trouble pulling for any of these characters. It wasn't that any of them did anything wrong. I just didn't like their personalities. Apparently, if you double the princesses (Did I mention that this is a Disney princess movie?), it doesn't double the pleasure. And no, I'm not talking about a princess menage a trois, you perverts. These are teenagers we're talking about! There's just not a lot of personality with these sisters, especially the one that can make ice palaces even faster than Superman. The dudes don't fare much better. Anna's first love interest has irritating sideburns, sideburns that just aren't fooling anybody. And the other guy, the one with the reindeer, seems like a nice enough guy, but he's got slightly less personality than, well, his reindeer. Or that goofy snowman who the Disney people probably just threw into this because there weren't enough laughs. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. The plot points are sketchy which I'm sure is the case with the Hans Christian Andersen version of the story, but it's also weirdly complicated. And the songs! There are too many of them since the producers decided that every single character--even the reindeer and Guy at Wedding Feast Who Isn't Sure If He Likes His Drink--should get his or her own song. And although I've been singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" off-key in completely random situations since I saw this, I really didn't like any of the songs. They all had this modern pop song that just didn't scream classic Disney to me. I hated the troll characters, thought the animation was pedestrian, and didn't like watching any of the action sequences in this. This is definitely a step down from Tangled, the princess cartoon that this is seemingly trying to mimic.
Your rating offends me.
ReplyDeleteReally? That would be a really strange thing to be offended about.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to be cute. I do think your grade is ridiculous (not 11 for "Field of Dreams" ridiculous, but still bothersome). I would translate a 12 into a C or C+, and although I OFTEN disagree with your views on animated films, this seems especially egregious.
ReplyDelete"Frozen" is beautifully animated. It has several likeable characters, and a real sense of Disney-lite drama. The "Let it Go" sequence is one of the best I have ever seen in an animated film and would rate with the greatest Disney songs. I would agree that "Tangled" is a better rounded movie, but that does not make this film a failure by comparison. I was very afraid that Olaf would be another Mater, but he was cute without being too annoying. Objectively, this should be at least a 16, and it deserved the Academy Awards recently won. Compared to the average movies produced, or the "unusual" films you often give higher grades to, your "Frozen" grade was offensive to my idea of an appropriate review of a very good movie for adults and children.
Likable characters? Which ones?
ReplyDeleteAnd are you sure you want to put "Let It Go," which is going to seem trite and dated in a few years, among Disney's best songs? The animation's fine (fine, not being high praise), but this just seems recycled. I think the Disney people whiffed on this one. Those troll things alone lost it a couple points. I'm sure I'll have to watch this in bits and pieces about 400 more times, so maybe I'll change my mind a little.
I feel the need to clarify my comment about how "Let It Go" will someday be dated...
ReplyDeleteThese days, I think thanks to all these singing competition reality shows, there's a showing-off trend in pop music. The songs picked for those shows aren't so much about creating any authentic emotion. And nothing about those kinds of performances make you want to really dig into the lyrics as poetry. It's all just bombast, a way for performers to show off their range or screech out, "Hey, judges! Look what I can do!" And I think "Let It Go," though kind of catchy, caters to that. And musically, it's sort of all over the place because of that. And I hate the "cold never bothered me anyway" part that, to me (an old man who prefers folk music) at least, clashes with the rest of the song. I also kind of think it's lyrically stupid.
Of course, if I put together a list of what I think are the best Disney songs (no, I'm not going to do that), all mine would be dated and more than likely lyrically stupid as well*. So I guess it's more to do with how I find modern pop music grating.
Not "Chim-Chim-Cheree" though...that's timeless.
Oh, fine...a stream-of-conscious list of Disney songs that I like, not in any order:
Pink Elephants on Parade
Bibidi Boppity Boo (or however that's spelled)
When You Wish Upon a Star
Ok, I've changed my mind again. I'm not doing this.
I thought "Happy" from Despicable Me 2 is a much better song than "Let it Go", and should have won the Oscar. But otherwise, Frozen is better than a 12....I am not offended by the review, but I do think the score is a bit too low for a good movie. (Its not great...but it is perfectly fine.)
ReplyDeleteIts a 15 or so....but of course its all subjective, isnt it?
The "Happy" song is also catchy...
ReplyDeleteJust looked to see what 'Frozen' beat for best animated feature and was surprised that the Monsters movie wasn't even nominated. I haven't seen The Croods yet (despite Nicolas Cage voicing a character) but didn't like Despicable Me 2. The Miyazaki movie should have won. No, I haven't seen it.
My 12/20 for this COULD be a little low. But it just made me so mad because of how bland it was. Bland characters, bland songs, bland scenery (some good animated ice stuff, but there wasn't a lot of texture here)...
Everybody--and I mean EVERYBODY--seems to think this is great, so I'm probably a little wrong.
I can't even remember "Happy", though the movie was less grating than the silly/cutesy/pandering/illogical excrement that was "Despicable Me" (for which you astoundingly gave a 14!!!).
ReplyDeleteI loved "Let it Go". I liked and even commented about the different parts to the song. I loved the animation in the scene, and thought it was great for the character development. Ashley is always asking me what my favorite things are, and immediately after the film I said it was that song (and to show how different we are in some things, I said the "cold doesn't bother me, anyway" bit was my favorite part of the song). I felt the emotion of the scene and thought the range of the singer was appropriate considering the song's importance. The older sister has been in hiding and guilt-ridden most of her life, and the song, besides being beautifully sung, is cathartic for the character and audience. As for the things you had issues with, they don't bother me, anyway.
Excrement? Now that might offend the people who like that movie. And there are a lot of those people. That's a very popular movie.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I doubt I'd like Despicable Me as well if I saw it again. I thought there was enough humor and creativity in that first one to give it a 14. The second movie made me decide that I didn't want to spend any more time with any of those characters. Usually, movies that I would never have an interest in watching again wouldn't get a 14.
Same with the characters in Frozen though. Flattest princesses (as in characterization, of course) and most personality-free "prince" since Sleeping Beauty. And his head was too big. I did like his interactions with his reindeer. I did not need a talking snowman though.
Yeah, I didn't feel what the reclusive sister felt in the movie. I understood Rapunzel's character. Ice Princess just got all gothy and hid herself away and then came out wearing gloves. The bombast of "Let It Go" didn't do enough to make me feel any pent-up issues. The lyrics are pretty lazy and do nothing to make me feel anything either. That's a song that depends on hooks and catchiness to help the viewer connect, and that's just not enough for me.
Character development? You honestly thought Ice Princess (I can't remember their names) was a well-rounded character? She was an archetype, which is fine because it's based on a fairy tale and all, but usually Disney breathes a little life into these characters.
Oh, and Disney usually gives you a great villain to root again. The guy with the sideburns was about the lamest villain they've ever had. Hell, he might be THE lamest they've ever had.
I'm not sure if "Happy" was written for Despicable Me 2. I thought it was just a pop song they threw in there like the Shrek people like to do. It is a really catchy song though. I like it, but it's not the type of song I like hearing in my cartoons.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the good guy. He had humor and heart and courage, and his relationship with the reindeer was fun (I also wasn't as fond of the trolls and the makers really missed a cool connection by ignoring the fact that he saw the trolls save the little girl. That was really odd). I kind of liked that the bad guy wasn't magic or obvious. He was a creep and turned out to be really evil, making it fun to watch my daughters both laugh loudly when he gets punched in the face. He is the kind of evil we have in our world.
ReplyDeleteWell, it wouldn't be right if we didn't disagree about an animated film. This is about the tenth one we have sparred over.
Happy was written for Despicable Me 2....which is not a good movie, but the song is much better than Let It Go...which I found tuneless and dull. One of those "tells a story" songs that I never like. I am woman, hear me roar. Blah.
ReplyDeleteBut again..Frozen is a pretty good movie.
Have you guys seen this:
ReplyDeletehttp://io9.com/watch-this-impersonator-sing-let-it-go-in-twenty-one-1544647892?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Pretty cool...
I loved the movie, but my priorities don't seem to be the same there as most people's. For one thing, "Beware the Frozen Heart" has the best orchestration and lyrics, no contest. For another, "Do You Wanna Build A Snowman" is easily the most emotionally affecting. In fact it's second only to "Leaves That Are Green" for making me cry just by getting stuck in my head.
ReplyDeleteBut most importantly, my favorite thing about the movie was Hans. Lame, you say? He's the only Disney villain ever to fool the audience! He makes Scar and Jafar look like lucky amateurs (Hans, by contrast, is an impeccable player with the catastrophically bad luck of happening on the only lock in the world pickable by a naif with a root vegetable. :p) He is the best villain to be based on Culverton Smith since 2006, and if that sounds like overly narrow praise, then you my friend need to hear more bells. After the reveal, I was still seeing him half through the eyes of the people he was fooling. He was just that good.
By rights, he should have died plummeting off an ice cliff or something, but as things stand: come on, he's being held captive in a country with a dozen-odd VIPs he's spent his entire life collecting leverage on. You think he can't hack that?
...Sorry about that half-fanon gush I just vomited all over everything. It's not usually my way.
vytresna, that's an interesting breakdown of the villain. I figured I was only fooled because he was underdeveloped. I was trying to think of other examples of Disney villains who might "fool" the audience by being sneaky bad. I like the more flamboyant Disney villains--Cruella, Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, Scar. Sideburns in Frozen reminds me of some of the more bland humans who are bad because they're really really mean more than flamboyantly evil. Think that guy in Tarzan or the guy in Beauty and the Beast or the guy in Tarzan. Or the guy in Atlantis maybe.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost inspired to put together a list of favorite Disney villains. Would that be worth my time?
I say go for it. :)
ReplyDelete