Like The Little Mermaid, the film that kicked off that Renaissance era, Frozen is inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story. The Disney animators have apparently been trying to adapt The Snow Queen for film since Walt Disney himself was still alive; finally they cracked the story, by departing much more from the original material far more than most other Disney fairy tales do.
It's easy to see why The Snow Queen was such a siren lure for animation. The icy powers of Queen Elsa lend themselves to amazing visuals: weather from gentle flurries to raging blizzards, light-refracting icicles and snowflakes, and a lavish ice palace are just scratching the surface. Enormous effort was put into these sequences, and it shows. (It also shows, unintentionally, in bad ways too. Some scenes set in simpler, indoor environments, have similar problems to the famous Beauty and the Beast ballroom scene, in that the characters don't seem believably placed in their environments. All the time effort must have gone into those amazing ice and snow scenes instead.)
The songs, from married team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, are certainly as strong as anything from the Howard Ashman/Alan Menken films. They advance the story while being both clever and conveying strong emotion. Particularly strong are "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", depicting the gradual growing apart of sisters Elsa and Anna, and "Let It Go," Elsa's defiant anthem about embracing her true nature. My young niece, who was seeing the movie for the third time with me (and who has endlessly listened to the soundtrack), quietly sang along with her favorites, and knew every word as well as "Part of Your World" or any other famous Disney heroine's ballad.
Frozen also boasts what may well be the strongest group of voice actors ever assembled for a Disney animated film. To cast their musical, the people behind Frozen pulled heavily from the logical talent pool -- Broadway musical performers. Idina Menzel (of Rent and Wicked) plays self-punishing snow queen Elsa. Her performance of the character's big solo "Let It Go" is the powerful and moving highlight of the film (and makes the end credits pop version by Demi Lovato pale in comparison). Jonathan Groff (of Spring Awakening) plays mountain man Kristoff. His singing talents are largely wasted on one brief half-song, but his acting delivers both the comedic and romantic elements the story requires. Josh Gad (of The Book of Mormon) plays clueless snowman Olaf, and keeps what could have been a rather obnoxious character entertaining. And Santino Fontana (star of a host of recent Broadway revivals) plays love interest Hans without tipping the performance (pardon the pun) cartoonish.
This strong batch of Broadway actors is then supplemented with people who have a long animation pedigree. Alan Tudyk plays the scheming Duke of Weselton; we Firefly fans know him best as Wash, but he's been amassing quite the list of animation credits, from Astro Boy to an Ice Age sequel, and even winning an Annie award for his work in Wreck-It Ralph. Maurice LaMarche, veteran of Futurama and voice of The Brain from the Animaniacs, is the father of princesses Elsa and Anna.
Headlining this group as princess Anna is Kristen Bell. She has the unenviable task of holding her own in a duet with Idina Menzel, but she rises to the occasion. And while those of us who knew her as Veronica Mars will be surprised to learn she can sing, we're not at all surprised at her deft handling of both comedy and drama throughout the film.
Although Frozen makes a few minor missteps (such as heavily front-loading the musical numbers in the first half of the movie), it is overall a very well-made, entertaining film. It's worthy of being placed among the great Disney animated musicals, and it surpasses the latest animated efforts of sister studio Pixar. I give it an A-.
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