The Negatives: Frozen

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Welcome to The Negatives. This is where we look at the critically acclaimed films from Disney, Dreamworks, and Pixar, and, well, point out their problems.

For In Defense Of, we looked at one of Disney’s biggest failures with The Black Cauldron, and I found some positive elements of the film. This time, let’s take a look at one of Disney’s biggest moneymakers of all time, Frozen. Now, even though we are about to look at the negative aspects of the film, I do want to say that I really do like this movie. Not as much as everyone else, but I still loved watching it. It brought a certain spark of Disney love back into me after my being so cynical about the company for years. However, over time, I have thought more critically about the film, and while I love Frozen, it really does have some flaws. Let’s get started!

 

The villain was weak!



Now, to be fair, I started off with this negative opinion, since in some ways, the villain, Hans, voiced by Santino Fontana, does work. Hans could represent the consequence of Anna being too outwardly social and trusting due to being inside a castle for so many years. It’s the reason why you shouldn’t be super-social and trusting of everyone, since some people out there are willing to hurt you and do things you don’t want to do. However, I think everyone could have seen this plot twist coming from the very beginning of the film. About 20 minutes into the movie, you hear Han’s father mentioning his plans for taking over the kingdom that Anna and Elsa rule. It’s not very original, and I feel like they didn’t really need a villain, since the main focus of the film is on the relationship between Anna and Elsa.

 

The Rock Troll song in the final third



You know how the song from the gargoyles was really distracting in Hunchback of Notre Dame? It was during a point in the story where the stakes were high and at that point, you were enthralled with the drama. Too bad that gargoyle song just ruins the entire mood and didn’t need to be in the film. That is how I felt about the song from the Rock Trolls in the final third of the film. This is after Anna was slowly freezing over. The male lead took her to see the Rock Trolls to try and cure her. Sadly, this leads into a song that really didn’t need to be in the film. It’s like “Hey! Anna is dying! Can you stop singing for a freaking minute, and try and save her?!” Granted, in the end, they couldn’t do anything to cure her, but they could have said that before breaking out into a song that ruins the mood and heartbreak of seeing one of the film’s main characters dying! At least Olaf’s song was amazing since he was so blissfully unaware of his fate if the sun hit him. Not to mention it was probably made to take a jab at annoying side characters.

 

Not really based on the source material



So, this film is very loosely based off the classic story, The Snow Queen. Why base Frozen off The Snow Queen story, when you barely do anything with the original story? Why not actually make a dark fantasy film? Dark fantasy films can work like The Dark Crystal. It is rather tiring that Disney, while they have been making good movies these past few years, will not do straight-up adaptations. It would be so nice for them to not think of how marketable this can be, or how many toys they can sell. Heck, that piece of CGI garbage The Snow Queen film at least hit elements of the original story more than Frozen, and I think Frozen is the better movie! They can at least say not “based on” and instead say "very loosely based on”.

 

Being overly marketed and commercialized ruined its charm!



When Frozen came out, it was a huge hit, and it was like, “Finally! Disney is back on track with good movies!” Not that they didn’t hit gold with the films leading up to Frozen, but still. Sadly, after Disney saw how hugely successful the film was, they tainted it with commercial tie-ins, putting the film back in theaters multiple times, and it resulted in all that charm and good graces that Disney got back, being now gone. It was overplayed, hyped-up to be the Citizen Kane of Disney films, and it was way too much. I really enjoyed it the first time I saw it, but that love shrunk slightly because of business. I know Disney is a company, and at the end of the day, it is all about making that bottom dollar, but at the same time, they should know when too much is, well, too much.

Like I have said many times, I do like this movie. Would I put it in my top 5? No. What about top 10? Well, maybe. I am glad it did well, and I am curious to see how they would do a sequel. I don’t think they should, but that’s just me. Well, next time we will be going back to In Defense Of, and I think it’s time to poke at Dreamworks. However, we might have to go a long way from Home to find something positive. Thanks for reading!