Frozen – Film Review

Anna (voice of Kristen Bell) sets out on a journey with an iceman, Kristoff (voice of Jonathan Groff), and his reindeer, Sven, in order to find her sister, Elsa (voice of Idina Menzel), who with the help of her powers mistakenly converts everything into ice.

The first time that I saw Frozen, I was thirteen and it was right around when the film was coming out in the theatre. I remember at the time really enjoying it and thinking it was amazing, but since the film came out six years ago, I did not really remember that much about it. So, I went ahead and rewatched the picture yesterday in preparation for the upcoming sequel Frozen II releasing this coming Friday, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film all these years later.

One of the biggest reasons as to why Frozen is, in my opinion, one of the best Disney animated films overall is because of the truly intriguing and compelling story. It is a story about a ton of things. There is a talking snowman in this movie named Olaf (voice of Josh Gad), and there are tons of other wacky things in the story here, but at its core, Frozen is a movie all about family and love, and it approaches these themes in an incredibly beautiful way.

Frozen (2013)

It’s funny because these seeds of emotion are planted all throughout the story, but it is not until the end of the third act in which you realize what the film is really about and it becomes quite emotional. Disney movies are well known for making people get emotional and this one will more than likely do that for most people.

Additionally, the voice cast here is quite amazing. We have the voices of Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell and Josh Gad leading out the cast and each one of them deliver captivating voice performances and they sell their characters expertly. There are some moments in which these actors have to do a lot with just their voices or even simple pauses and they do it effortlessly.

Since this is a Disney movie, you can expect the animation to be beautiful, and it most certainly is. In fact, to call the animation on screen beautiful may even be an understatement. It is breathtaking. It never fails to amaze me how incredibly talented these animators are, and it is even more crazy to think about how long it must take them to even animate one scene, let alone an entire feature length film.

Frozen (2013)

Another staple of a Disney animated feature is the music, and Frozen boasts some of the most iconic songs in the company’s history. As of November 2019, the hit song “Let It Go” has more than six hundred and sixty million views on YouTube and that view count continues to grow still to this day. There are plenty of songs in Frozen that you will be singing for days on end and they are all extremely catchy and fun to listen to.

When it comes to the issues present, the beginning of the story was a bit slow and it did take me just a little bit of time to get interested in the story, the characters, and the overall storyline. Gratefully, after about twenty or thirty minutes that pacing was greatly improved. Also, there is a humongous twist that happens in the third act of the film that is actually quite bad. It comes out of nowhere and it just does not work, simply because the film never once sets anything up for this twist to work. Instead, it feels incredibly forced and comes out of left field. But, besides those few things, Frozen is still to this day an utterly terrific animated feature.

Frozen is a heartwarming and often emotional film that boast breathtaking animation, a great voice cast, an interesting story, and catchy songs.

Overall Grade: A-

MPAA Rating: PG for some action and mild rude humor

Cast: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana

Directed by: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

Distributed by: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Running Time: 102 minutes