I unashamedly love Disney. One of the reasons why I love movies so much is because of that mouse’s company. For me, Aladdin and The Lion King are so important, so personal that they still conjure amazingly powerful emotions even though I have watched them numerous times. Don’t judge me.
Disney have a very difficult role to play in today’s film landscape – it is clear that they have been severely tested in the past 20 years thanks to Dreamworks and Pixar. In the early 00s, it felt like they tried to copy the new kids on the block and the result was Brother Bear, Home on the Range and Chicken Little (I wanted to say Bolt but I loved that film). Thank goodness someone within Disney said ‘f*** it, we’ll go back to motherf***in’ princesses and god-damn magic’ – the result was Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, Wreck-it-Ralph and Frozen. This is an extraordinary run of films which I feel rivals any period in their history.
But specifically on Frozen, they have conjured something that, I swear to god, I haven’t felt in a long time. There was a lot of hype and buzz surrounding the film, and when I picked up the Blu-Ray to watch it for the first time, I was sceptical it would live up to the reputation. Well it did -and then some.
Frozen makes you feel like a child again. Life as a bill paying adult who is responsible for other people is stressful, but for just under 2 hours Frozen makes you forget about your worries (hakuna matata, y0). I spent the entire time grinning and chuckling and laughing out loud and singing along to the music as if I have been doing so all my life.
AND THE MUSIC – good grief have mercy. The music in this film is so good that I am certain my daughter’s children will be singing them in the future. It’s that timeless Disney music, it’s that ‘Bear Necessities’ music, it’s that ‘Heigh Ho’ music, that ‘A whole new world’ music – you get the point. I was a little iffy on ‘Let it go’ but I am sure my sex has something to do with that, but ‘Love is an open door’ and ‘Fixer upper’ are ludicrously wonderful. And when I first heard Olaf, the talking snowman, sing ‘In summer’ I knew this film had me.
And the villain is brilliant (watch it again and you realise what a sly son-of-a-donkey the lad is), and the story is surprisingly unpredictable and the animation is top notch – *sighs* – I am just in love with this film.
I have already started re-watching it, I’ll probably be doing that a lot and for a long time. Kudos to Disney, they have their mojo back. I genuinely cannot wait to see what they have next for us.
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Just a normal everyday bloke writing about films.