Walt Disney Studio’s animated Christmas feature, “Frozen”,
comes across as a Broadway musical, with the original songs by Christophe
Beck, and Robert and Krsiten Anderson-Lopez. Directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris
Buck, the film has a screenplay adapted from a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
The kingdom, situated in what looks like a Norwegian fjord,
anticipates the crowning of its new queen Elsa (Idna Menzel). But really, she is something like a female
Clark Kent, with powers, and unfortunately they tend toward being wicked. He sister Anna (Kristen Bell) meets a
handsome prince Hans (Santino Fontana) and apparently she has her own karma
problems, not having lived a real life or known what it means to give and
receive love. Hans deceives her, as he
has political designs on the kingdom.
Elsa chides Anna about wanting to elope at first sight, and
suddenly loses control of her powers.
Everything around her freezes, and she flees to the mountains, to live
in her ice lodge.
Anna goes on a journey to find her, and enlists a kindly
trader Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) who is made to look confusingly similar to
Hans. They meet a hilarious snowman, who
stays alive even when broken into pieces.
He yield a great line, “Some people are worth melting for.” Kristoff has a hut in the woods and likes to eat lutefisk, maybe some homage to Scandanavia, or to Minnesota.
The premise of the story, taken literally, reminds me of a 1998 TV-made thriller “Ice" (Jean de Segonzac), where the world fast-freezes when the Sun suddenly
loses a quarter of its output.
The visual effects reminded me of the Gaylord Hotels’s
Christmas attraction,also called “Ice”.
The best song is “Let it go.”
Disney’s official site is
here.
There's a website, of the Hardin, China ice sculpture festival, that has visuals similar to what is in the film.
here.
The short film was a cartoon "Get the Horse", where an old-aspect black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoon is formatted on an inner screen, and interacts with the theater, spilling water from the screen over the audience (ironic -- next paragraph).
I saw this at the Regal Ballston Common, which still doesn’t
have all auditoriums open after a pipe burst above the top floor during the
freeze last week. I don't recall any previews, thankfully.
Pictures are mine (not from film).
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