Disney’s Frozen, Fox’s Walking With Dinosaurs Trailers: Too Cool for School?
I was quite impressed with Disney’s first teaser for Frozen – Olaf the snowman had some great physical shtick going, and his slightly crazed expression made me think of the Mad Hatter. The company clearly knew they had a winning character, as you can’t go into an AMC these days without seeing a giant hula-dancing standee of the guy.
I wasn’t prepared for Josh Gad to be his voice. Maybe it’ll work better in the final film, but he sounds more like Frodo Baggins than Ed Wynn. The overall tone is surprisingly sitcom-ish, with Kristen Bell doing that Jennifer Aniston “nervously over-sharing” thing, and gags that contrast modern behavior with a fairy-tale setting. Tell me – would Disney’s original Snow White have been better with a joke or two about Prohibition thrown in?
This looks like it could be quite entertaining, but it really seems like it’s trying harder to be hip than timeless. Watch below and see what you think – it’s not like any Snow Queen tale I remember.
Frozen Trailer 2 on Disney Video
One unironic Disney film that I think gets a bad rap is Dinosaur – nobody wanted the dinosaurs to talk, and once they did it seemed to kill the effect for most people. You’d think the same issue wouldn’t be a problem for a movie based on Walking With Dinosaurs, originally a nature program narrated by Kenneth Branagh and Avery Brooks.
But no – in the movie version, they talk. And they’re smart asses. Of course.
Looks visually cool, but the dialogue sounds way worse than Dinosaur already.