Over the weekend, like many parents, I took my kids to see Frozen, the latest animated feature from The Walt Disney Studios.
As a parent who's seen dozens (hundreds?) of kids films, I have developed two simple tests for how good a movie is. First, and this applies to all movies, is how many times did I check my watch? Second, how rowdy were the kids in the theater. These two tests will tell you how good or bad any kids movie is.
So first the watch test. And the result is zero. I never checked my watch to see how much longer the movie would last. Frozen kept up a very fast pace with few lulls in the action or story. Next test, was also a pass. In a packed theater, I only remember one instance of hearing another child. And that kid was pretty young, so I'll let it slide. The kids and adults were all entertained.
Frozen is probably the best film to come out of Disney since The Lion King. It is the story of two sisters, Elsa and Anna. Elsa is born with the ability to freeze things and due to some iffy parenting (take notes), looses a blizzard on her kingdom. Anna must save her sister and save the day. They are joined on the quest by Kristoff, a hardy and hunky ice merchant, Sven, Kristoffs' reindeer, and Olaf, the snowman.
Olaf is the comic relief, and the musical number where Olaf imagines summer is the funniest and dearest movie moment of the past 13 years (since my son was born and I started seeing these films).
In Disney style, love saves the day, but with a modern PC twist that doesn't seem forced or false. And this movie actually passes my third test...would I see it again? Yes.
