La Reine des neiges : Une fête givrée

Preceding "Cinderella" in its theatrical release is "Frozen Fever," a short film revolving around the characters from the hit Disney film "Frozen." The short involves Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and her friends Hans, Sven the moose, and Olaf the snowman (Josh Gad) preparing a surprise party for her younger sister Anna (Kristen Bell). Elsa, however, has a cold, where every sneeze produces several tiny little snowmen, sort of resembling Olaf, but she persists on, taking her sister through all of the little decorative zones she has set up for her before taking her to the final party. The short reinforces my believe that the "Frozen" characters are best in small doses, and I only wish now that instead of the "Frozen 2" we all knew was coming, we'd see these characters populate several, extremely fun shorts like this.

What's the point of this? It's not long enough to have any kind of real story so you wind up with an unnecessary short that just serves as a reminder that there was this movie a couple of years ago that had these characters people liked. I mean the whole thing is basically one song stretched over a thin plot about a birthday party for Anna. That's it. It doesn't feel like they had this amazing idea for a short in mind but that they just wanted to keep the Frozen brand alive while they worked on a feature-length sequel. Maybe I'm wrong about the motivation but the whole thing just seems pointless beyond the commercial reasons. Look, I'm not saying it's a bad cartoon. It's fine for what it is but it really makes you appreciate the animated theatrical shorts from decades ago when people put effort into crafting a quality cartoon with a limited running time.

This short film tells how Elsa and her friends prepares for a big feast to celebrate Anna's birthday.

The two recent animated shorts from Disney got nominated for Oscars because they were very good. This time round, it is obvious that "Frozen Fever" is mainly a commercial premise that capitalises on the runaway success of "Frozen". The plot is warm and fun, and the two princesses sing new songs in brand new dresses. The jokes are funny, especially the one involving an anagram. However, I think it lacks the sparkle and the truly heartwarming magic of Oscar winner "Feast", or the beauty of reminiscence of the Oscar nominated "Get a Horse".

I was apparently one of the select few, who dozed off during Frozen, I don't know why but I fell asleep for a bit. I didn't hate it but I don't get what all the fuss is about. Anyway I went in with an open mind to see Cinderella and the short "movie" Frozen Fever. I used the quotation marks for the simple reason that I could not see Frozen Fever as anything but a commercial, a commercial for the upcoming Frozen 2 but mostly a commercial for new merchandise while we wait for the second animated film to come around.

The story itself is interesting, the girl - Elsa - who has ice powers and doesn't need a coat in winter gets a cold, that can be good premise why not. But then Elsa and Anna change outfits and the sisters are basically playing with the dresses as if to show them off in the commercial, sorry the short. And it slowly becomes less and less about the story and more about the merchandising. I usually don't have a problem with making money but not if it's at the expense of good short film that could have been a lot more entertaining if it wasn't a commercial.

This short is no surprise, considering "Frozen" and its merchandise made zillions of dollars for Disney. My feeling is that the story itself didn't really matter...the studio just wanted to get anything "Frozen" back into the theaters. So, they reportedly took a song cut out of the original film and made a story about Elsa planning a birthday party for her sister, Anna. The story is nothing special and I would say the same about the song that is sung throughout. The only real special thing about it is the CGI--which is once again breathtaking. And, it also introduces the Snowgies, which I assume were created just so that Disney could market even more "Frozen" stuff to the kids.

The bottom line is that if you adore everything "Frozen" you'll probably enjoy this. To me, it just felt second-rate and nothing more.