Frozen

Yes, I finally have seen the 2013 cultural phenomenon, for a specific reason elaborated upon in my review. My family has always returned to Illinois; thus, my schedule should be back to normal now: 

Who am I to argue with my 3-year-old niece?

My sister (the one that lives in Illinois, not the one that I visit each December in Kansas) came down here w/ her beau and two young children on Saturday the 21st and flew back to Illinois halast night. Except for two days when they were away on the Atlantic Coast, all my time was w/ them. Everyone will agree that spending time with those little tykes was far more important than Letterboxd foolishness. 

The only Frozen property that had been seen by me before last night was parts of the sequel when they were viewing it on the Freeform channel (where it was sort of inscrutable) and that poorly-received Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, which was literally a 21-minute feature made for television but played before Coco for some reason; that really was inscrutable for me. Like millions of children in the preceding 12 years, my niece LOVES Frozen and Let It Go. My cute little nephew was At the conclusion of the review I’ll give a heartwarming reason why I finally viewed this cultural phenomenon.

There’s absolute no need for a plot recap by me; thus, I’ll say that Frozen was… fine. It’s totally not in my wheelhouse as a grumpy man in his mid-40’s and like in Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, there was no shortage of songs. Those points noted, the movie was inoffensive and right or wrong, was not decisive like at least some Disney releases since then, but let’s not open that can of worms. Let It Go wasn’t even the song I thought was “best” but the soundtrack wasn’t bad and overall, I much rather prefer all my nephews & niece view programming like this rather than those efforts full of crude humor or are just off-putting.

Olaf, though… that is a character sometimes best in small doses, despite being more than odious comic relief; it can be argued whether Josh Gad even has the most melodious-sounding voice—then again, I am a doofus, especially compared to him and all of his accomplishments. In any case, characters such as Anna, Kristoff, and Sven were all fun, amusing characters. Finally, the CG of course was stunning.

While there are no plans to tackle the sequel, this reminded me that family entertainment isn’t always so dire. As for my sister & her family’s time in Florida, everyone had a swell time. The most noteworthy day was Wednesday; we were at Walt Disney World’s Epcot for… 12 hours! Even for me that was insane; all things considered, everyone handled that better than expected. There was some anger, tears, concerns about dehydration… and that was just me! But seriously, the day wasn’t a disaster as it could have been.

The niece wasn’t able to go on every ride; her favorite was Frozen Ever After, in the Norway pavilion. I wish it wouldn’t have replaced the old Maelstrom boat ride as that was awesome. However, to the niece she went bananas at seeing Elsa and hearing Let It Go. Both that and her sheer joy at viewing the fireworks show at the end of the night (Luminous: The Symphony of Us) warmed even my cold heart; that became an unforgettable memory.