3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and quite needlessly, for action and mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang
Disney’s animated films haven’t
been such a much of late, with little of note since 2010’s Tangled. The studio’s traditional animation department has been
overshadowed by its Pixar colleagues, who’ve demonstrated a far better
understanding of good storytelling.
 |
| As Anna searches for her sister, she's first joined by Kristoff and his loyal reindeer Sven; they then encounter a loving snowman named Olaf, who has been brought to life via the same magic that has brought a life-threatening winter to the entire land. |
I therefore was delighted by the
opening act of Frozen, which evokes
pleasant memories of the Broadway-esque musical atmosphere delivered so well by
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the next several features
that contributed to Disney’s lock on the 1990s. The prologue of Frozen feels much like Beauty and the Beast, as it establishes
key character relationships and the underlying fairy-tale curse that will
propel the plot, and this new film also offers several lyrically clever tunes
by Tony Award-winner Robert Lopez (The
Book of Mormon, Avenue Q) and
Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
Best of all — at least, at first
— these vocals are well integrated into the action, smoothly supplementing the
drama in a manner that feels natural.
Alas, that deft marriage of story
and song becomes increasingly contrived as we move into the second act, by
which point each new tune is greeted with resignation. (“Seriously? Another one?”)
Director/scripters Chris Buck and
Jennifer Lee — with an assist from Shane Morris on the story — also lose their
narrative’s dramatic heft as we skate into the climactic third act. The
suspense wanes, in part because their story lacks a stylishly conniving villain
in the mold of Gaston (Beauty and the
Beast) or Jafar (Aladdin); this
film’s simpering Duke of Weselton hardly qualifies.
(Yes, I’m well aware of the
climactic twist. But it’s too little, too late.)
Instead, the drama’s primary
threat emanates from one of the heroines, who undergoes a reluctant
transformation very much in the mold of Elphaba, in Wicked ... which may not be a coincidence, since that Broadway role
was played by Idina Menzel, who also voices the character under discussion in Frozen.
Déjà vu, anyone?
Fairy tale fans who fondly recall
Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen
will be hard-pressed to find anything familiar in this narrative, except (to a
degree) the core premise. Not necessarily a problem, of course, as long as the
re-invention is similarly imaginative.
