WARNING AGAIN: Spoilers for the Disney movie FROZEN
If Frozen was a shitty movie through and through, I think I'd have less problems with it. I can tolerate something being shitty. What gets under my skin is when you mix shit and good ideas, so I have to go "Dammit, why couldn't those good things be in a better movie?"
I get that a lot of people enjoyed Frozen, so I made a point not to take cracks at it in the latest movie thread, but as my wife and I discussed seeing it again, all the problems I had with it came billowing up, both subjectively and objectively. At first I had believed that the filmmakers made Tangled for one kind of audience and Frozen for another, but the more thought I gave Frozen, the more I saw its cracks. All movies have problems as an objective matter. Even the most seemingly perfect films have issues. Your own enjoyment of a movie is going to be whether the good outweighs the bad.
So, what I liked: the visuals were beautiful, the animation (particularly the faces) was solid, the villain twist, and the love twist. Olaf was a decent character and had some great lines. The opening song was engaging and got me into the movie. I liked that the movie was about two sisters, particularly the backstory and the climax.
Okay, with that out of the way, some of my problems were subjective and others are critical to the structure of the film. I could not stand the presentation of the song "Let It Go." Good writing, one of the few songs that didn't feel intrusive, and yet they present it like a pop song. The way the piano plays as the camera pans the mountain at the song's opening feels like the scene was designed firstly a scene they could isolate as a music video clip on the Disney channel, and really took me out of what was an emotional moment for Elsa. (I also can't stand the singer's shrill high notes and would've preferred a slightly lower pitch, but that's personal taste and I can't hold that against the movie.)
Too many fucking characters whose purposes are to be red herrings. Weasel Duke is a pretend villain so we have someone to hate-on until Hans shows his true colors. Hans is a pretend love interest because Anna will really fall for Kristof. Kristof is a pretend love cure because the love between Anna and Elsa is the real deal. If you cut out Weasel Duke and make Elsa the pretend villain, and get rid of Kristof so that Hans seems like the love interest, you get a stronger story with less characters to shove in. Having Hans be the only love interest, and then betray Anna, would mean the movie-makers had to stick to their message at the end. Same with Elsa and Anna--if Elsa is the villain red herring until the prince captures her, Anna's love comes off as stronger. I don't know why Kristof exists except to give Anna a man at the end, which is against the message in the movie. Sven could've been that whole character, no love interest. The inclusion of these unnecessary characters makes it feel like the movie's overall purpose is to trick the audience, when they could've pulled off the twists they wanted without bogging down the story.
The songs came out of nowhere much of the time. It felt like the people doing the screenplay had almost no contact with the people writing the songs. It felt like "Hi, I'm a character AND HERE'S MY SONG okay, back to what we were doing," as opposed to developing characters or moving the story forward. Recent Disney movies have gotten away from the kinds of songs that just interrupt the pacing and this felt like a huge step back. "Let It Go" was one of the times I felt the song made sense to be at that moment, but Olaf's song, the troll song, Hans and Anna's song, the building a snowman song ... ugh. I liked a couple of those songs, especially Olaf's, but their placement was bizarre. I'm glad the movie got away from this in the third act or we would've had the awkward "running-singing-gotta get there in time but sing about it" way overdone climax of Pocahontas.
I really would've like to see more scenes of Anna and Elsa, but that's not the story about sistery love they were trying to tell, it seems.
Now, I may care about these problems less if I watch Frozen not right after re-watching Spirited Away, Ratatouille, and Kung Fu Panda 2, followed up by Tangled, The Princess and the Frog, and Wreck-It Ralph. My viewing sandwiched it in the middle of much better animated movies, whereas people with kids have probably had to watch some true garbage and Frozen was a beacon of icy glory. But whether I care or not, the problems exist.
Then there's this video (warning: spoilers for Frozen, Tangled, and Wreck-It Ralph)
I don't agree with everything these guys say, but most of the problems they note are accurate, especially comparing how Frozen tackles character emotion and dialogue versus an important scene in Wreck-It Ralph.
If Frozen was a shitty movie through and through, I think I'd have less problems with it. I can tolerate something being shitty. What gets under my skin is when you mix shit and good ideas, so I have to go "Dammit, why couldn't those good things be in a better movie?"
I get that a lot of people enjoyed Frozen, so I made a point not to take cracks at it in the latest movie thread, but as my wife and I discussed seeing it again, all the problems I had with it came billowing up, both subjectively and objectively. At first I had believed that the filmmakers made Tangled for one kind of audience and Frozen for another, but the more thought I gave Frozen, the more I saw its cracks. All movies have problems as an objective matter. Even the most seemingly perfect films have issues. Your own enjoyment of a movie is going to be whether the good outweighs the bad.
So, what I liked: the visuals were beautiful, the animation (particularly the faces) was solid, the villain twist, and the love twist. Olaf was a decent character and had some great lines. The opening song was engaging and got me into the movie. I liked that the movie was about two sisters, particularly the backstory and the climax.
Okay, with that out of the way, some of my problems were subjective and others are critical to the structure of the film. I could not stand the presentation of the song "Let It Go." Good writing, one of the few songs that didn't feel intrusive, and yet they present it like a pop song. The way the piano plays as the camera pans the mountain at the song's opening feels like the scene was designed firstly a scene they could isolate as a music video clip on the Disney channel, and really took me out of what was an emotional moment for Elsa. (I also can't stand the singer's shrill high notes and would've preferred a slightly lower pitch, but that's personal taste and I can't hold that against the movie.)
Too many fucking characters whose purposes are to be red herrings. Weasel Duke is a pretend villain so we have someone to hate-on until Hans shows his true colors. Hans is a pretend love interest because Anna will really fall for Kristof. Kristof is a pretend love cure because the love between Anna and Elsa is the real deal. If you cut out Weasel Duke and make Elsa the pretend villain, and get rid of Kristof so that Hans seems like the love interest, you get a stronger story with less characters to shove in. Having Hans be the only love interest, and then betray Anna, would mean the movie-makers had to stick to their message at the end. Same with Elsa and Anna--if Elsa is the villain red herring until the prince captures her, Anna's love comes off as stronger. I don't know why Kristof exists except to give Anna a man at the end, which is against the message in the movie. Sven could've been that whole character, no love interest. The inclusion of these unnecessary characters makes it feel like the movie's overall purpose is to trick the audience, when they could've pulled off the twists they wanted without bogging down the story.
The songs came out of nowhere much of the time. It felt like the people doing the screenplay had almost no contact with the people writing the songs. It felt like "Hi, I'm a character AND HERE'S MY SONG okay, back to what we were doing," as opposed to developing characters or moving the story forward. Recent Disney movies have gotten away from the kinds of songs that just interrupt the pacing and this felt like a huge step back. "Let It Go" was one of the times I felt the song made sense to be at that moment, but Olaf's song, the troll song, Hans and Anna's song, the building a snowman song ... ugh. I liked a couple of those songs, especially Olaf's, but their placement was bizarre. I'm glad the movie got away from this in the third act or we would've had the awkward "running-singing-gotta get there in time but sing about it" way overdone climax of Pocahontas.
I really would've like to see more scenes of Anna and Elsa, but that's not the story about sistery love they were trying to tell, it seems.
Now, I may care about these problems less if I watch Frozen not right after re-watching Spirited Away, Ratatouille, and Kung Fu Panda 2, followed up by Tangled, The Princess and the Frog, and Wreck-It Ralph. My viewing sandwiched it in the middle of much better animated movies, whereas people with kids have probably had to watch some true garbage and Frozen was a beacon of icy glory. But whether I care or not, the problems exist.
Then there's this video (warning: spoilers for Frozen, Tangled, and Wreck-It Ralph)
I don't agree with everything these guys say, but most of the problems they note are accurate, especially comparing how Frozen tackles character emotion and dialogue versus an important scene in Wreck-It Ralph.
I thought Gravity was also terrible, but when I say that I get the same reactions. 
