Movie Thoughts: Frozen (2013)

• Released: November 27, 2013
• Directed by: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
• Running time: 1 h 42 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A princess goes on a quest to stop an eternal winter after her older sister's ice powers accidentally freezes all of their kingdom.

My Thoughts

Frozen has such a weird history with whether people like it or not. When it just came out, everyone went wild with this film, me included. Then not too much later (probably due to the overexposure) a lot of people started to criticize it, sometimes very harshly, and some even outright hated it. I was never a part of this group, but I did very much start to see the flaws in the movie as time passed and it no longer was one of my favorites. And prior to re-watching it for this MT, I hadn't seen the movie in years. So let's revisit it and see if it's good, bad, or maybe just in the middle.

Having re-watched it, honestly, I still think it's a good movie. Feel free to hate me for this conclusion, but I genuinely do not think, even with its flaws, that this is a bad movie. I'm not calling it a very good or even a great movie; it's definitely not, but I do think it overall is just that. Good. Solid 7/10.

This movie does have a lot of good things to offer. Likable characters, a neat Nordic fantasy setting, amazing animation and visuals, a real plot with a ticking clock and some good character relationships. 

But there's also some pretty glaring flaws opposing that. First of all, the comic relief. I will give them credit for at the very least not making Olaf annoying and loud, but I still don't find him funny. At all. And he's quite a large part of the movie. He even gets his own (pretty obnoxious) song that adds nothing to the plot other than to establish his simple character motivation of wanting to experience summer, something that also could've been conveyed through dialog or at least a song that I like. So while he's far from the worst Disney comic relief out there, he's still not a character I enjoy at all.

The second one: Hans. When this movie came out, everyone was obsessed with the twist of the "true love" prince being the villain. But once you look at it from a more critical lens, it really does suck how his twist was written. There is not a single ounce of buildup to his plot twist of being a villain. It just happens. I'm already not a fan of twist villains, but they most certainly can be done right, including by Disney (think King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph). But this is just writing a twist for the sake of having a twist and shock value, not for it actually making sense in terms of the plot. Hans is also just such a boring non-character during his "good" time on-screen and once he turns into a villain he's still every ounce as boring, just evil now. 

But that said, I do still think that overall this movie does really hold up. It does have some other things I'm not really into (e.g. the whole self-aware humor they keep drilling into the ground in modern Disney movies), but not enough flaws for me to actively dislike it. I do totally get why people don't like this movie and that's totally valid, but for me there's enough good in here to at least give it a good rating, even if it's not super high.