I finally got around to seeing frozen, since it became available on Netflix. I’m a bit too big to fit in the tiny seats at my local theater comfortably for hours.
I am actually kind of glad for that, as it would have been an even greater disappointment if I had spent the money to go out to see it. Perhaps my expectations were set a bit high? What with all of my friends telling me how it totally lives up to all the hype.
It doesn’t. It is contrived to the point that it can only really be enjoyed by mocking how predictable the plot is. I guess they spent all their money on their 3D models and didn’t have enough to actually pay writers to work on the thing.
A lot of my complaints are going to be about the story, so beyond this point, expect spoilers in mass. So, here we go.
First: The Perfect Amazing Epic Boyfriend of Perfectude. Obviously, when you see this guy with the main female lead, they are too perfect and happy together to POSSIBLY not have something go horribly, horribly wrong. I was honestly hoping he would die, because the only alternative would be a bland, stale, “turns evil without any foreshadowing at all” situation.
In case you didn’t guess already; they went with the second option. When Anna comes to him in need of true love’s kiss to not die, he turns evil more or less at random just to add conflict and to resolve the “but this other likable character had more screen time together with her” issue.
He claims that he orchestrated their accidental meeting. How? The movie is pretty clear on Anna never getting to leave the castle. He would have to be psychic to predict that she would, on that day leave the castle early at all. Much less dance and sing her way over to the specific peer that he was waiting at.
Aside from that; he kept up his nice guy ruse around people he had no need to be nice around. Why did he need to give away tons of blankets and food to random people at the frustration of his future trade partners? Why did he go out of his way to stop Elsa from being murdered at risk of being shot himself by a crossbow when murdering her was a necessary step of his plan anyway?
Speaking of plot holes though. Why couldn’t Anna know about magic? It is implied early on that the damage done to her would return if she was reminded that ice magic was real. But then, when Elsa accidentally reveals her magic absolutely nothing happens to Anna.
If Elsa did not want to have any attention, and was afraid of being around anyone, why didn’t she just forfeit the throne and give it to Anna? Why did Anna even have to be locked up in the castle at all if she didn’t have any powers?
Most questions about the plot have basically the same answer: “Because the plot demands it to be so”. Perfect dude has to be evil because they needed conflict for the final act. Anna had to be grossly misinformed about everything and locked up because they needed conflict for the first act.
So, the actual plot though. Basically, Elsa is Rogue from X-men, if instead of draining everyone’s life, she turned everything into ice. She is told she’s dangerous and must hide her powers at all cost, until the stress of being around tons of people, being coronated, and an argument with her sister (who is conveniently ignorant of everything) causes her to flip out and cause an accidental apocalypse.
The rest of the movie is just Anna trying to apologize to Elsa to stop the apocalypse. No quest, no artifact to help bring her powers under control, just.. people running around in uncoordinated circles until they finally realize at the last minute that “true love” fixes everything.
And then true love fixes everything. And then the movie ends.
I’m really not sure what to make of this movie. It seems like a big pretty waste of time. The visuals are good, and probably took a lot of work, but the story makes no sense. Things just happen, and characters just do things for no reason beyond that it has to happen that way for the plot not to fall apart.
Additionally, the song are terrible. Most of the time people just sing. Not about anything specific they just sing. In Beauty and the Beast; a movie this one is compared to often enough, the songs make sense. They are being sung to other characters. “Be our guest” is being sung to welcome Belle and to introduce the manor.
Here.. the characters just start singing whatever happens to be going through their heads at the time. There is no real point to it beyond just to make it a musical. I am genuinely surprised there wasn’t a “I’m riding a horse right now” song for one of the characters.
Overall, I think this movie had only one goal in mind. To look good. And it does; visually it is very well made. I’m sure whoever worked on it poured thier hearts into this thing. But it seems like literally everybody else didn’t care.