Before reading the rest of this review of Frozen, if you have been reading my previous work on this blog, ask yourself, “How do I think this is going to go?” If your answer is anything less than stellar, you may want to stop right about . . . here. One thing I would like to add, and forgive me if I mentioned this in any of my other critiques of animated films, but I have a theory about them: adults delude themselves into thinking that there are themes in these kid’s movies aimed at them. Maybe there is something I am missing? Anyway, I am going to give this recent Disney classic a fair and honest assessment. Thank God I have Disney + so I did not have to fork over any more of my hard earned money to that company than I already do.

People love Frozen. I can see why kids do. The main characters are all plucky and courageous, and I applaud Disney for creating good role models for children . . . for the most part. My Catholic-ness approves of such troupes. I also kind of feel like Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) is a bit of a spoiled brat, and the entire film is about her throwing a temper tantrum and getting over it. There, that is my summary of the movie. The end. . . .

But no, Frozen fills in the inevitable beginning of Elsa’s cold snap to the long awaited conclusion with a tale of her sister Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) on a quest to save her sibling and bring summer back to Arendelle (on a personal note, I am thankful that my computer does not recognize this fictional kingdom as a correctly spelled word). I admire the determination Anna shows as she wades through snow, rock trolls, and suffers an ice spike to the heart (which kills her?) all for the love of her sister. She endures ice monsters, falling off 100 foot-tall cliffs, and being turned into an ice statue as well. That is Christ-like love, and she is not the only character to show it. There is also Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad) who delivers the line that sums up these traits, “Love is putting someone else’s needs before yours.” Were the makers of this film reading the Bible? At any rate, this is the emotional core of the movie that I admire.

Okay, so far it is sounding like I enjoyed Frozen. I did not. Look, it is just not my thing. The main reason is that I do not enjoy musicals. Whenever there is something happening in them, they seem to interrupt the proceedings with a song. This is not Puccini. This is a film aimed at children and because they have short attention spans, the film cannot dwell on exposition and instead has to repeat every little line of dialog with singing. In short, in my view, the songs do not move the plot along. If this movie did not have any musical numbers in it, how long would it be? Twenty minutes? That is a fair question given that in one scene Anna and Elsa are best friends, and then in the next they are not talking to one another. How does the movie explain what is going on? With a three minute song and then it is on to the next scene. As for the music itself . . . no thank you. Though I had seen it before, I watched it again with my friend who I live with who has a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of musicals (older ones anyway, which he enjoys immensely, unfortunately). He is also a musician. To his expert ears, the music was full of “tuneless chords and hopeless arpeggios.” I do not really know what that means, but it does not sound good.

Furthermore, I did not laugh once during any of my viewings of Frozen. I do not find the dog-like reindeer Sven funny, and I am slightly worried that Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff) is insane given that he puts words into Sven mouth. Hey kids, try being an adult and using animals to to talk to yourself and that being your moral compass, and see what society does to you. But again, this humor is not aimed at my demographic. So if your child finds this stuff hilarious, more power to them and I am glad they like it. Just be on the look out with them and their pets.

There is nothing wrong with Frozen if you enjoy Disney’s animated films, humor designed to get children laughing, or musicals. None of those things are for me, though I do like Disney in general. If you have made it this far, then thank you for reading my review and God bless you. I pray that I have not offended anyone, for that truly is not my intent. As I mentioned, there is a definite, good emotional corps to Frozen that needs to be appreciated. I just prefer to take mine in other styles, like JoJo Rabbit.