Frozen

Rating: 4½ / 5

Having grown up in literally the best time for a kid who enjoys animated films, I've loved Disney for most of my life. Disney managed to create "Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King", "Toy Story", "Aladdin", and many other films that not only defined countless childhoods but still stand today as some of the best animated films of all time ("Beauty and the Beast" is a 5/5 film for me.) That being said, in the 2000s, Disney had some trouble maintaining the quality of animated features that the previous decade had seen. I'm pretty sure if you've seen "Brother Bear", "Treasure Planet", and "Home on the Rang", you and the 50 or so other people like you should start a class-action lawsuit against Disney. They owe you, they stole nearly six hours of your life that you'll never get back.Anyway, moving into the last part of the decade through today, the Mouse had more success with films like "Up", "The Princess and the Frog", and "Wreck-It Ralph". "Wreck-It Ralph" was pretty good, admittedly, I'm not a fan of Sarah Silverman, but the movie was solid. Then we have "Frozen". "Frozen" reminds me the most of the Disney movies I had as a kid: The story was familiar, and you knew everything was going to work out in the end for Elsa and the gang, but along the way we had ridiculously good songs thanks to both the voice actors (namely Broadway stars Idina Menzel and Josh Gad) and the songwriting of Robert Lopez ("Avenue Q", "Book of Mormon") and wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Jonathan Groff and Kristen Bell both did well, but Gad's snowman, Olaf, steals the show. You don't need to be a kid to see this movie and have a great time, although its message is a little off for young children. How could "run away and live in an ice-castle because you're self-conscious about your super powers" (wait, is this "Superman") not be seen as a little too strong of a message to kids about overcoming obstacles? Regardless, the film is the closest thing I've seen to "Beauty and the Beast" in quite some time, and I only hope the future holds similarly great things.