"Frozen"/Walt Disney Pictures/Dir. by Chris Buck an Jennifer Lee/108 min./Rated PG (for some action and mild humor)
Many believe that Disney animation went through a catastrophic decline in quality in the early to mid 00's. While there's no arguing the fact that "Home on the Range" and "Chicken Little" were no classics, I tend to think that this period was less a creative bankruptcy and more a severe identity crisis. For decades, Disney was the animation monopoly. From 1939 to the early 80's, most non-animation buffs would be hard pressed to name any feature length animated film that wasn't Disney (such films do exist, but you probably haven't heard of most of them). In 1979, one of Disney's key animators, Don Bluth, left the company to start his own animation studio, taking a good chunk of the Disney animation staff with him. This sudden loss of talent not only lead to the studios' biggest flop, "The Black Cauldron" (the first PG rated Disney animated film), but it also lead to the first major competition the studio had ever faced. Bluth directed two of the biggest animated hits of the decade, "An American Tail" and "The Land Before Time." "Tail" was especially challenging to the house of Mouse because it was a success at a style that Disney seemed to hold the trademark for. Namely cute critters breaking out into delightful song and dance.
However, thanks to an infusion of talent, including amazing animators and terrific collaborators like Broadway's Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, Disney came out on top. With the quadruple threat of "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King", Disney claimed their rightful place on top of the pack.
Then Pixar happened. In 1995, with the release of "Toy Story", the world's first full-length computer animated film, audiences were treated to a style of animation that not only had the joy and fun of traditional animation, but the visual wow factor of major special effects films. Plus, Pixar did it without a single character singing about their feelings.
Then Disney animation head, Jeffrey Katzenberg, left to co-start DreamWorks, which made an empire out of amazing computer generated images and more hip and ever-so-slightly naughty humor. Pixar and DreamWorks began to flourish, while each Disney film seemed to make less and less money.
The first sign that Disney was questioning themselves came in 2000 when they released a major animated film in the middle of December (they normally opted for the high-profile months of June and November). The film was "The Emperor's New Groove" and while it was a hit with the critics and had long legs at the box-office, it wasn't the event film on which Disney had built their reputation. In fact, what was originally envisioned as an epic musical update on "The Prince and the Pauper" placed in South America became a non-musical (unless you count Kuzko's theme song) slapstick comedy that owed more to Bugs Bunny than to Belle and Ariel.
Disney continued to play catch up with Pixar and DreamWorks, trying adventure ("Atlantis: The Lost Empire"), sci-fi ("Treasure Planet"), and even sci-fi/comedy/Hawaiian (the delightful "Lilo and Stitch", which was the studios' biggest hit from this period), but the fact remained that they were floundering. They fought to become like the other studios. Fortunately, when John Lasseter, the head supah-genius at Pixar, became the new head of animation at Disney, he reminded them that they weren't like the other studios, nor should they be. He brought back hand-drawn animation and the fairytale/musical style of story that Disney does like no one else. First with "Princess and the Frog", then with the superior "Tangled", and now with "Frozen", which is a Disney fairytale unlike any they've done before, yet somehow distinctively, delightfully Disney.
Loosely based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale "The Snow Queen", "Frozen" tells the story of two sisters. Elsa (Idina Menzel) is fiery and fun and was born with the power to create flurries of snow and ice. The younger sister, Anna (Kristen Bell) is a bundle of energy and loves spending time with her sister. However, after an accident, Elsa avoids Anna, leaving their relationship strained and unresolved. When the two are grown and Elsa is of age to become queen of the kingdom of Aradell, another incident occurs and Elsa flees the kingdom, unknowingly causing a constant state of winter on the kingdom.
To tell you more about the plot is to deprive you of the surprises, suffice to say that this story does a fantastic job of honoring the tradition of fairytales while subverting the cliches that are found in most of them. There are genuine twists and turns that show that the filmmakers were committed to creating full-rounded characters that act on motivations more noble than finding someone cute to smooch.
The animation on display here is simply stunning. There's a beautiful scene in "Tangled" when the aura of a flower sprouts out toward the screen. "Frozen" is filled to the brim with scenes that install the same sense of wonder. Ice and snow dance and flourish with a vitality and life I've never seen in a film before, made even more exciting by the filmmaker's exceptional use of 3D. Most impressive is during the song "Let It Go" when Elsa creates her ice castle while fully unleashing her powers. It's the strongest song in the film and combined with the breath-taking animation makes for a masterful center piece.
Which leads me to the one draw back to the film. The songs, written by the Broadway husband/wife team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, are simply not as consistently good as previous Disney musicals. Yes, "Let It Go" is a stunner, but that's as much to do with Idina Menzel's acrobatic vocals as it is with the song itself. Other highlights include "In Summer", a delightful rumination on warmth from Olaf (Josh Gad), a snowman that doesn't know what happens to snow when it gets hot, and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", a wistful tune that follows the girls from childhood to becoming young adults. However, both of those songs beg to be longer. "In Summer" could've greatly benefited from a little "Be Our Guest" style expansion, especially since it takes place in the imagination of a snowman. There was so much that should have been done. The rest of the song score is less memorable, replacing the complex wordplay of the Howard Ashman and Stephen Schwartz with songs that are clearly more interested in simple rhymes than wowing audiences. In fact, a couple songs could've been taken out completely and not missed one iota.
However, in the long run, "the songs aren't as memorable" is a small complaint in a film that has so much to wonder and dazzle. It's funny, it's engaging, it's beautiful, and, even if all the songs aren't equal to the task, at least "Let It Go" stands proudly with the best songs in the Disney animation canon. As films targeted towards family become more and more inane (my wife and I groaned a lot during the previews before the film started), "Frozen" stands head and shoulders above the lot. It's not only the best animated film of the year, but the most complex and engaging Disney film since their heyday in the 90's.
Grade: A
