REVIEW: Frozen

FROZEN (8 out of 10) – Directed and written by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee; animated feature starring the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Alan Tudyk; rated PG (some action and mild rude humor); in general release, showing in either 2D or 3D; running time: 108 minutes (includes animated short, “Get a Horse!”).

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – George Santayana

Remember “John Carter,” the supposed “Ishtar” or “Waterworld” of Disney? There are those – yours truly included – who believe that film’s catastrophic, box-office failure can be blamed at least partially on a marketing department that didn’t know how to properly promote the film.

(From the removal of the “of Mars” part from the title to the lack of merchandising tie-ins to the last-minute, desperately idiotic attempts to position it as a “Disney princess” movie … yes, really … it was as if the studio executives and others wanted that movie to flop.)

Those responsible – well, some of them – were sacked as a result of the “John Carter” tanking. But the new marketing regime at Disney isn’t much better, at least judging by the bungled of latest animated feature, “Frozen.”

Were you to rely only on the ads, TV spots and trailers, you’d probably think the film was a cutesy, dopey-looking comedy with more than just a few similarities to last year’s Oscar-winning animated hit, “Brave.” Instead, “Frozen” is a musical-comedy/fantasy. That, apparently, is considered to be a bad thing at Disney, which has conveniently forgotten all the earlier hits they had with such musical animated films as “Beauty & The Beast” (1991), “The Lion King” (1994) and “The Little Mermaid” (1989) – or most recently, with 2010’s “Tangled.”

And yes, this quick-moving, sharply-animated fantasy-comedy will definitely remind some viewers of those classics, as well as that aforementioned revisitation of the Rapunzel fairy tale. In fact, it can be argued that not only is this the best animated work by the Mouse House this year (apologies to “Monsters University”), but it’s also the best big-screen musical to come along in the time period as well (sorry, “Les Miserables”).

“Inspired” by the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Ice Queen,” this one follows a pair of estranged sisters, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (the voice of Idina Menzel). Orphaned young and groomed to be rulers of the kingdom of Arendelle, the sisters haven’t spoken to each other in many a moon.

As it turns out, this icy sisterly relationship dates back to a nearly tragic incident, in which Elsa’s cold-weather “powers” nearly killed Anna, who has no memory of that, or most of the worst parts of her childhood.

Now of age, Elsa has been crowned the queen of the kingdom, just in time for those powers to re-emerge with disastrous effects. A panicked Elsa flees into the mountain, but now before she accidentally plunges Arendelle into a new Ice Age. (Thankfully, it’s not the type of cretinous one popularized by the inexplicably popular Fox Animated movie series.)

Anna, who blames herself for Elsa’s predicament, sets off to find her sister and restore the more normally, summery weather to the kingdom. Luckily, she has help from Kristoff (Jonathan Groff, from TV’s “Glee”), an ice “entrepreneur,” and his faithful reindeer steed, Sven.

But it’s a race against time, as the storms are getting worse and some nefarious forces from inside and outside the kingdom are plotting a hostile takeover.

Admittedly, there are a few tell-tale signs that this is yet another Disney “salvage” job, akin to “Brave” (in which Pixar veteran Brenda Chapman was replaced at the directing helm) and “Ratatouille” (in which Brad Bird replaced another Pixar veteran). This time, it’s Jennifer Lee, of last year’s “Wreck-It Ralph,” who was brought in to introduce more action and more funny.

Given how cohesive and complete the story and the whole project are, she and co-scripter/co-director Chris Buck (2007’s “Surf’s Up”) worked well together. It certainly helps that they have such a sterling voice cast, which is refreshingly free of the vocal “stunt casting” that brought down more than a few big-screen cartoons, and several catchy, hummable songs – courtesy music producer Kristen Anderson-Lopez

Instead, their stars are the multitalented Bell, Groff and Menzel (a Tony Award winner, for Broadway’s “Wicked”), who do their own singing, as well as comedian Josh Gad, who gets welcome laughs and rarely rankles as the voice of a wisecracking snowman named Olaf.

By the way, both the 2D and 3D showings of “Frozen” are also playing with the latest, modern-day cartoon short starring the beloved Mickey Mouse, “Get a Horse!” The action-comedy sees our hero teaming with old friends Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and others to take on his familiar nemesis, Peg-Leg Pete, who’s kidnapped Minnie Mouse.

The clever and brilliantly animated short plays with perspective, color (it stars in black-and-white then transitions to color), digital dimension and traditional cel-painted animation, and it has more laughs in its scant six minutes than most of the allegedly “comedies” Hollywood has released this year.

Jerk-bot, better known in human form as Jeff Michael Vice, can be heard reviewing films, television programs, comics, books, music and other things as part of The Geek Show Podcast (www.thegeekshowpodcast.com), as well as be seen reviewing films as part of Xfinity’s Big Movie Mouth-Off (www.facebook.com/BigMovieMouthOff).