La reine des neiges

I really wanted to like this movie, especially when I saw that Patrick Stewart was in the cast as the voice of the raven since I'm a long-time Patrick Stewart fan. I realize I'm a snob when it comes to "The Snow Queen." This was one of my all-time favorite children's stories. I also realize that anytime you read a story and create your own image of things, a movie will have a hard time living up to your creation. That being said, I really enjoyed "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" but, alas, I cannot say the same for this movie.

The CG effects were cool but distractingly obvious. It was sort of like watching somebody's first attempt at a video production using CG. Gerda's mother was played by an actress (Juliet Stevenson) I had seen before but couldn't remember where. To give a gauge as to how emotionally engaging the movie was, I spent most of the movie trying to figure out where I had seen her before.

I would say that, for young children not familiar with the original story, this would be a good 'pop it in the VCR for an hour so I can get some cleaning done' movie. But if it wins any awards, I'd be shocked.

Starting from the beginning I wasn't sure if I could actually sit through the entire film. The special effects were bad, the dialogue was worse. The film failed to capture my attention. The plot, while probably better in other versions, did not come through properly. The acting needs works. The scenes looked like something I would see in a high school play and the green screen wasn't any better. The songs were, for the most part, unnecessary and didn't add anything to the film.

I would advise people, of all ages, to avoid this film. There are so many more things you can do with an hour.

Every generation of directors and children's TV programmers seems destined to try their hand at Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen, this version is one of the best.

Filmed with a mixture of animation and live acting, it manages to capture the spirit of early eastern-European animations and graphic novels, the unreal backdrops suggest a stage performance, and the jerky motion, marionettes. Combined with a wonderful score written by Paul K. Joyce (and performed by the Royal Philharmonic), this is certainly an adaptation children will love, and continue to be entertained by for years to come.

Although some parts of the story which are skimmed over could have had more time spent on them (and it's possible some adults will be expecting Disney and fail to see past the computer imagery), it's good to remember that this is a story to be enjoyed, not studied, and its for kids who probably wouldn't want it to drag on.

All in all this is a very worthy production, there are far worse ways to spend an hour of the holiday period.

This is a confused and confusing adaptation, wherein stylish minimalism substitutes for story and meaningless special effects replace plot elements until the story is more or less completely gone.

A key plot event, for example, entails utterly unexplained and un-anticipatable magical powers being deployed, where Andersen's original invokes more poignant and symbolically instructive natural cycles.

The writers of this adaptation transform a story with powerful symbolic resonance into a bad Saturday morning cartoon.

Instead of this I strongly recommend you seek out some version of the 1959 Lev Atmotov / Nikolai Fyodorov adaptation, which preserves the symbolic power of Andersen's material.

We thought it was smashing! The style was apt. The atmosphere mystical. A work of creative genius. A modern reworking with a message that is still relevant. I,m surprised to read comments that decry this work as a television special when it is clearly a piece of work that stands on its own and needs no justification from me as to its existence.A charming tale.I think you need to watch out for this guy Gibbs as a director as he has vision, imagination and creativity and should not be buried under a weight of ill informed criticism, which hangs like an albatross around the necks of so many burgeoning British film directors with talent!