First Impression: La La Land

First Impression
I recently went to the cinema to see La La Land and I can honestly say I loved it. It’s been such a long time since I went to the cinema and came away feeling the mix of emotions I felt throughout La La Land. Confusion, sadness, joy, anger were but some of the emotions I felt from viewing the film. Before I saw the film, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I didn’t think the movie was going to be as gripping as it was and I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. I felt the promotions for the film were lacking as they didn’t clearly state what the film is about. As a result of seeing the trailer on T.V. I had no desire to see La La Land. I thought it might be one of those films I kind of want to see but will probably wait until it’s on Sky Movies. After seeing La La Land, however, I completely understand the following the movie has gathered in the time it has been in the box office.

The soundtrack was exquisite. A soundtrack, I feel, is often one of the most difficult aspect of a film to get right. Do you hire a bunch of artists to record songs to feature in the soundtrack but not the film or do you risk the expense of making a musical for it to flop once it hits the box office. The creative team behind La La Land chose to tackle making a musical and it has paid off, big time. I was sceptical throughout the opening numbers. I thought “what the hell am I watching?” but as the film progressed the musical numbers had me entranced with the characters and the stories they were trying to portray.

I could not imagine two better actors who were suited to the character’s personality traits like Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. They had undeniable on stage chemistry which had me eating out of the palm of their hand during the film. I felt as though I experienced the highs and lows they faced myself. When the ending of the film brought me crashing back to reality, I felt like I had received a sucker punch straight to my gut but I relished in the mix of emotions the movie left me in.

I may not get the chance to see La La Land in theatres again (and believe me I will try my hardest to make it before it leaves the cinema) but I will wait in eager anticipation to get my second helping. 

 

First impression rating: 5/5 

Movie Review: Frozen

Background
The story of Frozen is a modern adaptation of Hans Christian Andersons ‘The Ice Queen’. True to Disney style there are plenty of catchy songs, love interests and hilarious side-kicks to make this Disney film an all-time classic that will live on for decades to come. The film follows the coming of age of Elsa (Idina Menzel) who is the newly appointed Queen of Arendelle and struggles to conceal her ice powers from her sister Anna. Anna (Kristen Bell) has spent most of her childhood isolated from her only sibling, due to an accident with Elsa’s powers when Anna was a child.

On the evening of Elsa’s coronation day, Anna meets Prince Hans (Santino Fontana) of the Southern Isles. After a catchy upbeat song, Hans proposes to Anna and she accepts. However, Elsa is not supportive of the marriage and reveals her powers to the kingdom, in an attempt to further push Anna away, for her own safety. Frightened, Elsa flees the kingdom and becomes empowered when she realises she is free from her duties as Queen. Arendelle is left in perpetual winter after the Queen’s departure and Anna takes it upon herself to find her sister and bring summer back to the kingdom.

 Rise to Fame

Frozen was introduced to us in November 2013 by Disney. Frozen quickly became the best-selling Disney film in the box office ever, earning $67,391,326 in its opening weekend and an estimated $1.3 billion since then. Due to its huge success in the box office, Frozen quickly became a household name across the globe and merchandise sales were through the roof! The following year, Frozen was nominated for 131 awards and went on to win 74 of those awards, which included the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song (Let It Go).

Part of what made this film so incredible was Disney’s ability to play on the stereotypical idea that a Disney princess needs to be saved by ‘true loves kiss’, or in Frozen’s case ‘an act of true love’, to break any spell or curse she finds herself bound in. Disney have been slowly turning their back on this stereotype as we can see with previous instalments, such as Brave and to an extent Tangled. 

My Opinion
I, like many of you, have been subject to Frozen many times in my life, whether it be of my own free will or forced upon me by siblings, family members and friends. At first I was just as captivated by the film as most people were and I absolutely love Olaf! But the more times I watched the film there was something that just didn’t make sense. I believe in the attempt to make Frozen something so revolutionary, they failed to correctly identify a villain in the film. I believe that Hans was the most convenient character for the role of villain in the film but it’s not a choice I agree with.

From the moment we were introduced to Hans in the film (17:07) he is shown to be a caring, strong and wise young man who is completely smitten with Anna. In his monologue, which begins at 1:15:47 and ends at 1:16:57, he mentions killing Elsa twice so after he and Anna married they would be the new rulers of the kingdom. This, for me, is where the storyline fell apart. Even if Hans were to marry Anna he would never be a king in Arendelle as Anna is the next in line for the throne, after Elsa. This means that in the event of Elsa’s death Anna would be Queen and Hans would forever remain a Prince as he cannot have the higher title which would be King. He would the royal consort to the Queen and any children they would have would be automatically higher in succession for the throne than Hans would.  

As previously mentioned Hans expresses his intent to kill Elsa twice during his monologue but if he really intended for her to die, she gave him multiple openings where someone else could kill her or she crossed a line that she could never come back from. Take for example 1:12:02 where a guard has Elsa in line with his crossbow and Hans runs and diverts his shot. If he had really wanted her to die he would have let the guard kill her and his hands would be clean of any attempts at murdering the Queen. Throughout this scene and the next scene, he gives Elsa words of advice (1:11:51) and shows her compassion and understanding (1:12:49-1:13:22). Hans’ personality change at 1:15:47 just doesn’t make any sense to me. Instead of trying to establish a real villain in the film, someone with a clear motive for wanting harm to come to the princesses, I feel the writers just took the easy way out. That they could sacrifice the character of Hans so that they could get their message of ‘you don’t need a man to save you’ across to the audience at the end of the film. 

Final Movie Rating: 3/5

Authors Note 
I am interested in hearing your opinions about the movie. Why not comment below? Even if you agree or disagree, or would like to suggest a movie for me to review, I would love to hear from anyone who has taken the time to read my review!

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