[dc]T[/dc]he latest Disney animated feature, Frozen, came out last month. It took a few weeks until Stephanie and I managed to see the film, and Frozen was worth the wait.
Cooler than cool. Image via Amazon.
Disney’s latest string of computer animated films continues to impress: Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and now Frozen. Being an animation geek, and a Disney geek too, Frozen sat at the top of my must-see list for the past few months, and it did not disappoint.
Get a Horse!
Prior to the start of Frozen, Disney attached a new Mickey Mouse short: Get a Horse! What started as a fun return to the old-school “rubber hose” animation era took a u-turn and incorporated modern 3D animation. I really enjoyed Get a Horse! and I love how Disney is getting back to releasing Mickey Mouse shorts. Get a Horse! was a crowd-pleaser for the audience, which for a 9PM show on a Monday night in Lansing, consisted mostly of adults 20 years old and up (as far as I could tell).
Frozen: It’s All in the Details
If you go on some of the tours at Disney World, you learn how Walt Disney was a firm believer in ‘the details.’ The little stuff you might not think about, but when given attention, make the final product better (such as, the amount of detail at (Disney’s Animal Kingdom). I loved all the little details in Frozen, the character and environment design especially. I’m sure this was intentional (and because of all the work which goes into animation, everything usually is), the look of Frozen reminded me of classic Disney films like Sleeping Beauty.
Sing With Me
Frozen features several great songs, and overall the music is very well done. Sure, there are couple of usual schmoopy Disney love songs, but the real stand out is Let It Go, as sung by Idina Menzel, who played Elsa (famous for her role as Elphaba in the original Broadway run of Wicked). Let It Go is a powerful three-minutes-and-change of singing, and as Stephanie said Elsa is “The first Disney princess to really have any pipes.” Don’t be surprised if Let It Go gets an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. The entire Let It Go sequence in Frozen is an audio-visual treat. Very moving and worth the price of admission alone.
Need more convincing? I bought the Let It Go by Idina Menzel MP3 not 24 hours later.
Laugh With Me
After the music, and animation, the other stand-out of Frozen is the humor. Much of it leans toward the awkward spectrum, especially with the talking snowman Olaf, but it is very well done. Frozen will have you laughing, for sure.
Sister Sister
Without spoiling the main story points of Frozen, I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, in that it deviated away from the usual Disney fairy tale tropes. To compare, Frozen is more like Brave than say Sleeping Beauty when it comes to story. Frozen will touch those with siblings, younger and older, especially sisters.
3D or Not?
Stephanie and I saw Frozen in 3D, more by necessity than choice—we could only make the 9PM 3D showtime. Normally, I prefer 2D versions of theatrical films, but Frozen was a great 3D experience. If you don’t want to shell out the extra money for 3D, you won’t miss too much, but if you can, see Frozen in 3D. It is a big film, shot in the widescreen ratio of 2.35 : 1, so you notice the 3D depth and scope a bit more. Frozen is a very cinematic animated film, and is well-worth the time and money to see in the theater.
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