Frozen

Cute, charming, and enjoyable. That’s pretty much the extent of it--not a bad movie by any means, but certainly not the manna from heaven that everyone (seemingly) was declaring it to be when it hit the theaters. It does get points for being mildly provocative in its denouement, and the songs are catchy enough (though they oddly disappear about two-thirds of the way through); but there are obvious shortcomings. Take the look of the thing: the landscapes and “effects” parts of the rendering look fine, but the characters seem to be almost lacking in detail. So it’s good, just not that good.

(Re-review from 6/15/23) I must be getting soft in my old age.. Perhaps I was affected by the overwhelming positive response to this one upon first release; I have so much trouble with the nature of popularity. My original critique of the graphics remains; the animation, while impressive in some ways, is also oddly light on details in the character's appearance. Nevertheless, the rest of the film is a lot better than I originally gave it credit for. Good story, solid relationships between the principal cast members, and the songs—where they are there; as noted before, they kind of vanish part way through the running time—are outstanding, with great melodies and terrific lyrics. Sometimes your cynicism can get in the way more than it protects you; mine led me astray back in the day. Now, I’m old enough to know better, and that shows in seeing that, on second viewing, this is a better movie than I had imagined. That’s all right; being wrong never bothered me anyway.