Frozen: Trailer and Reviews

It's being touted as the best Disney movie since "The Lion King," a combination of a Hans Christian Andersen story and a modern musical. When a prophecy traps a kingdom in eternal winter, Anna, one of the king's daughters, goes looking for her shut-away sister Elsa, who's responsible for the frozen wasteland. Along the way she meets a mountain man, Kristoff, and his reindeer Sven (can you say Maximus?). They also meet a wise-crackin', highjinks-lovin' snowman named Olaf. Throw in some mystical trolls and lots of magic and voila! You have "Frozen."

Here's what the critics are saying;

In a year of weak animated features, Frozen – loosely based on "The Snow Queen" – takes the lead by default. There's not much flair in the story of princess sisters Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), divided by Elsa's uncontrollable ability to turn things, even Anna, to ice. But the animation is pretty, the songs are tuneful, and Josh Gad gets big laughs as Olaf, a snowman with a sun fetish. It's the holidays, people, work with it. Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

While the journey may seem overly familiar, the destination has some surprises in store. Some come out of nowhere and don't exactly work. But the biggie—the one that's a real game-changer in terms of the sorts of messages Disney animated classics have sent for decades—is the one that's important not just for the little girls in the audience, but for all viewers. It's so innovative, it makes you wish everything about the film met the same clever standard. Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

But this animated sort-of adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, directed by Chris Buck (Surf’s Up) and Jennifer Lee (who co-penned Wreck It Ralph and also wrote Frozen’s screenplay), makes it clear that girls who pin all their hopes on romance may want to rethink the fairy tale and opt for self-reliance. Welcome to Disney 2.0, which has learned from the box office success of Tangled and last year’s Brave, that kids are demanding a lot more from their cartoon princesses these days. Linda Barnard, the Toronto Star

Disney's latest epic, Frozen, is a real bargain: For the price of one ticket, you get two films, both of them pretty sweet. Frozen starts off like one of the studio's fairy-tale classics, with a royal family facing a terrible curse in its Edenic preindustrial kingdom. (The story is a drastic, sentimentalized reimagining of The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen's most ambitious fable.) David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer

Despite its chilly title, “Frozen” is a bundle of winter warmth, a delightful and dazzling display of Disney animation at its finest. Graced with the wonderful vocal talents of Kristen Bell (a native Detroiter) and Idina Menzel, this is also the most successful Disney musical in years, featuring bright new songs from the husband and wife team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lope. Broadway, clear a stage, because this is coming. Actually, the only complaint with the movie is that the singing fades toward the film’s end as story and action take over; still, as complaints go, it’s pretty minor. Tom Long, the Detroit News

"Frozen" runs 1 hour and 25 minutes. It's rated PG for mild crude humor and action. It's showing at University 16 Theaters,