So I finally saw this. It's a weird mix for me, I love a ton about it, but there was an undercurrent of little plot and characterization things that made it feel kinda weird.
Let me say first though that the level of human expression in these girls' faces was goddamned astonishing. And boyeeee let me crank up the creep-o meter and go on record as citing these as the most attractive CG women I've ever seen. The realistic facial animation goes a long way towards solidifying that impression.
Some of the songs I had issues with, but others were really amazing, and Idina Menzel makes me shit bricks with some of the strength she brings to them. I was pleasantly surprised with Olaf, too. He looked really irritating in previews but his actual characterization when not just compiled into 4-second cuts that destroy all comedic timing was actually pretty charming.
But alright so I'm just gonna list a bunch of things here and see if they end up tying together into a coherent criticism.
Elsa's parents, once Anna had her memory altered, were embarrassingly idiotic. "We'll lock her away, keep it all hush hush, no exposure, teach her to be afraid and ashamed." There's no dissent from the trolls, no indication whatsoever that this course of action wouldn't be good for her. Her father immediately says all of this, and it just felt extremely unbelievable to me. How he could say it with a straight face, "I am setting up the plot with my bad decisions."
I didn't like "love is an open door" because it really bothered me that they so nonchalantly threw the word "love" around in that song after not actually having any tangible romantic interaction up until then. I know the whole thing is that Anna is being super impulsive and moving on this guy way too fast but I needed their brief relationship to hit a boiling point that it never did, and then the song felt like it came out of nowhere. A song about how this guy is really great, how he's opening your eyes up to this and that, all fine and great but it's just that word Love in there that ruins it thematically for me, and makes it extremely unbelievable. The song can BUILD to that at the end maybe, they realize it by singing the song or something, but right in the first chorus? I don't think so.
Let it go is a pretty amazing song, but it also felt like it came out of nowhere and made no real sense. The only real sense we have from Elsa in the film up until then is that she hates her power, she's afraid of it, she's terrified of hurting people, of anyone finding out about it. Her fleeing the kingdom is consistent with this. Her suddenly deciding "wow this is great I can do whatever I want now awwww yeah power times look at this bitchin castle I am the best" feels thematically dissonant. She's run out into the wilderness, chased out by her people, she should be mortified, "oh god what have I done." Instead she does a bizarre heel turn and now she loves her powers. I'd be okay with this if it was at all foreshadowed. Give brief little cuts earlier in the movie where she still uses her powers willingly, but in private. Where it seems like she wants to be herself, but is forced to repress it. The song is empowering but makes very little sense after what just happened to her, her sudden isolation from her sister and kingdom. If they made it seem like she wanted to get away from the kingdom, like she felt trapped there against her will, like she was being repressed by her family and her responsibility, even that would've set it up. But again, I got no sense of any of that.
"True love's kiss." I get that it's a disney reference but I groaned internally at every mention. That the first thing everyone in the movie jumps to is "oh it's obviously gotta be a kiss, cause this is a Disney movie." I'm glad it turned out NOT to be one, but still.
I think the troll song was a little too on the nose. I liked how that relationship was growing organically, the "lol marry him" song put it way too far out in the forefront I think.
The prince becoming evil. It felt like it really didn't accomplish much of anything. I expected him to kiss her and it didn't work cause it wasn't true love, it was impetuous young lust. Instead oops he was evil. It didn't really impact the plot at all, is the real issue. He tried to hit Elsa with a sword, and Anna blocked it, that was literally it. They could've easily put that situation together with some other kind of danger, Evil Prince just felt forced.
This isn't really a huge criticism but I kinda wish the movie's resolution involved Anna having Summer powers that counteracted Elsa's Winter powers. So that the sisters balanced each other out, so that their isolation is what caused the problems, that by being together they would've become whole. Elsa feeling "love" felt pretty lame, it's not like she never loved, she loved Anna plenty. It was just ruined by fear is all.
Overall I think the plot itself was pretty sound, it's just certain details about the events, and the way those events just happen without proper foreshadowing or characterization, that bugs me. This is a big post full of complaints but I really did like the film, I just feel like there was a wasted opportunity for Disney to look back on the film as a whole, identify these missing bits, and fill them in to make the whole thing a million times more believable. A little more context here and there, and it would've been outstanding.
