MYST Post #5: Frozen

There's been a lot of talk about this movie both before and after the Oscars ceremony. I've always wanted to see the movie in its entirety, but never had the chance to until this weekend at the 24 hour relay. It was one of the movies they played at midnight on the football field while everyone was cuddling and balled up to stay warm. This movie is about this girl named Elsa that has these magical ice/snow powers that she tries to hide by wearing gloves. She eventually gets out of hand and puts a curse on the entire town so that they have an eternal winter unless she switches it back. Instead, Elsa runs away causing her sister, Anna, to go after her and try to get her to come back. Anna encounters may obstacles with a guy she met on the road, Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. These include getting healed by a bunch of trolls, being thrown out of the castle, fighting off an ice monster, and even death. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie even though it was animated. It's like a classic Disney princess movie, except that it doesn't end in the girl getting with her prince charming.


The actors in this movie, in my opinion, aren't as well known as the ones in the other movies I have reviewed on this blog. One of my favorites in this movie is Idina Menzel. Her voice is so magnificent and powerful. In addition to starring in Frozen as Elsa, she played a role in Enchanted and the tv show "Glee". In both of these, she starred in a role that involved singing and being in charge. This reflects in Frozen because she is the reason for the cold weather and is technically the queen of the town. Kristen Ball and Josh Grad are the other two more main characters in this movie. Kristen Ball, as seen in her role as Anna in Frozen too, plays more of the girly roles where she falls in love and can sometimes be ditzy. An example is the movie When in Rome. Josh Grad, in comparison to the other two, is more of a minor character; this is something he does in most movies. For the role he played in The Internship, people would barely realize he starred in it as the guy behind the recruitment of the interns. He portrays someone who is ultimately a genius in this movie. In contrast, Grad's role in Frozen is of that of Olaf, the snowman. In this one, he isn't portrayed as a smart person, but in fact of a happy go lucky snowman who doesn't realize that he will melt in the summer. Overall, I was pretty happy with the cast choices and of the characters in the movie in general.

The scene I chose to talk about in this post is one that stayed in my mind for a while now. It's the scene in the very beginning of the movie where we are first revealed Elsa's powers when Elsa and Anna play in the big room in the middle of the night. (They are still children in this scene.) The scene starts off with an extreme long shot of the big ballroom to start off with the setting. It then alternates between medium shots and close-ups of Elsa's hand forming snow and the expressions on Anna's face to the girls holding hands and spinning in circles. There is then a low angle shot of when Elsa throws the ball of snow in the air to start a snowfall. This is used so that we see the snow in the same perspective as Anna and Elsa. It then switches to a high angle so that we can see the girls dancing around and having lots of fun from a bird's eye view. This allows us to see how small they are in comparison to the room and to see all of their actions. The scene then alternates between long shots and close-ups. The long shots are used to show any actions Anna and Elsa are doing that usually involve more than one body part, such as building Olaf (my favorite character in the entire movie). Close-ups are used in order to show their facial expressions or an action coming from a specific body part like Elsa's foot causing the entire floor to turn into an ice skating rink.

Considering the fact that this is an animated movie and it's mostly made using a computer, the special effects are a lot easier to handle and make compared to others. An example of this is with that scene I talked about in the previous paragraph. They are able to alternate between different shots very easily since it is drawn out and done through a computer. The soundtrack, more specifically the singing of Idina Menzel, is amazing. The songs are very catchy and a little different than the usual Disney movies. The tone of the voice-overs also match what you would expect, meaning they chose the actors to play these characters very well. Last but not least, most of the movie had a blueish tint to it. This works perfectly with the movie because it is about an ice princess and winter, which in most people's minds are blue and white. Overall, the cinematography and effects of the movie were great, probably most due to the fact that it was done by a computer so slightly easier to alternate between things.

The movie as a whole met my expectations for how it would be after listening to so many people rant on how it was so good. I do agree to it being one of my favorite animated movie as it is different from the classic plot lines of the older movies. I give Frozen a 4.4/5 stars because I think that it is a classic that everyone should watch at one point in their life.