La reine des neiges

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.

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.

A Few years ago I saw the Snow Queen on Hallmark, I was absolutely blown away with the story and magic of that adaptation. Thinking that it was the same movie I was disappointed to find I had gotten another telling of the story. Yet I was willing to give it a chance, as I usually love anything made by the BBC. I have to say though I agree that the score of this movie was beautiful, I may have to find a copy somewhere. I was terribly unhappy with the CG animation and acting, you could just tell that the actors were filmed on a blue screen. It felt extremely fake.It was just horrible, it hesitated and you knew from the moment you began that it wasn't real snow. It just felt cheep. The BBC didn't have a winner with this film. It felt rushed as well, even though it was quit close to the original story. If you want to really experience the Snow Queen, please by all means read the story. If your interested in seeing a film that is well made and acted, I recommend the one done on Hallmark,which can be found on Amazon. Steer clear of this film, unless you feel the need to waste an hour. However, if you like classical music do get a CD of this movie the music it's self is really the only good thing in this movie.

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!

The Snow Queen is one of Hans Christian Andersen's best fairy tales. However, there has only been a few adaptations of it, and most are mediocre and childish. This is no exception.

The best thing about this TV special is the musical score; which is so beautiful and mystical it could have come from a classical music piece. I can't say the same for the rest.

This made-for-TV special looks like it was made by a group of college film students. I'm not too sure how much of this is 'real', because it looks like every shot has been superimposed over an Adobe photo edit. Even worse, the motion capture has a weird, jerky style of action that really detracts from any 'magic'. This is proof that CGI can give authentic looking dinosaurs, and encourage some of the shoddiest special effects ever shot.

The character development is so weak that neither sympathy, nor an understanding of personalities is felt. The story mainly skims and summarizes the plot of Andersen's fairy tale, giving the feel of headline news when compared to the original book.

I would normally give an adaptation like this a three, but considering that this is a one hour TV special, a 'major motion picture' style cannot be expected. This gets a four.