Nebraska and Frozen review

Watched a couple of films today after finally purchasing the "Unlimited card" from Cineworld which, I should have invested long ago. Could've saved a fortune! Oh well. I had intended on watching Saving Mr Banks today but unfortunately, I had woke up late and missed the screenings. Instead, I watched Nebraska which I must say, I had no idea what it was about before watching it.

So, this is my first time watching a directed film by "Alexander Payne" and from hearing past films for example "Sideways" (2004) and "The Descendants " (2011) having such well received reviews, I was interested in giving this film a go. Plus, the fact that this film was highly praised in the Cannes festival 2013, this further made me more curious on how this film will turn out.

Woody and David- Father and Son

I must say the first ten minutes of the film felt very blunt as I sat there soaking in the characters personality, for instance "David" we can see how he cares very much for his father, that he doesn't hesitate to defend him and it's understandable, as we saw very early on, the condition "Woody" is in.
We can then visibly see how time has caused the deterioration of the family to slowly fall apart and tensions are on a all time high with Woody's health condition as "Kate" his wife and "Ross" his other son, decides what's the best next step for Woody.

Woody meets his old work partner at "The Blinkers Tavern"

It's only with Woody stubborness to claim his "million dollar prize", that we start to see the story take on a new chapter, as David decides to help his father accomplish this, even though he's aware the fact that his father has unfortunately fallen victim to one of the many blatant scams that is posted by mail.
So, we then see a journey with father and son where they slowly rebuild and lean about each others past and present.

Woody and Kate - Husband and Wife

I won't spoil anymore of the story as I really believe that this film is definitely worth a watch, as your patience will be greatly rewarded with some heartwarming, sad, funny moments, that is well structured together, as the story is slowly unravelled to you. I really enjoyed this film and give this three and a half stars. Now, I have to watch Sideways and The Descendants.


Another film that I was able to watch the newly released Frozen, that has just come out in the UK. I was quite excited about this when I first watched the trailer when it came out. My other friends however didn't exactly share the same enthusiasm.

I had high expectations for this as the film "Tangled" (2010) which is similar to the storyline and theme of a fairytale of what Frozen seems to be, was a very refreshing take to this kind of story; a film that I really loved. After watching the film I was about maybe sixty to sixty-five percent sure that I enjoyed this.

One of the reason for this was the amount of songs that was sung one after the other, there was too many and I felt that this didn't really help the story grow or be told effectively. However they were some rare moments that was well sequenced together because I wanted to know more about how they were feeling like the snow queen "Elsa", who in my opinion didn't have much screen time as she should have had.

The film is almost two hours and at times it was a bit of a drag to watch as the structure of the story was predictable and at times I thought that some scenes could've been cut. The story does make sense but I just don't think that they gel very well together. I do feel the lack of urgency or danger that takes place in the story was well. When there is however, like a pack of wolves, they are easily just cast aside and forgotten. When seeing the ice mountain troll from the trailers, I genuinely thought that this would be one of the main villains, but he wasn't.

 I think the fact that the amount of characters or creatures that are introduced, doesn't really help, when instead they could've have focused on five main characters, the "snow queen Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and the Duke". The characters that really stuck to my mind that I thought was unnecessary was the trolls. Yes, they needed them for one aspect of the story, but they were the most unappealing characters, why couldn't they have used fairies?

Love at first sight

I maybe bashing a bit here, but some of the points I raised are key factors from what makes previous Disney films so great, the story and the characters. So I therefore felt a bit disappointed with the way the film was told.

The video below is from the film Frozen which had much of that enchanting and magical feel of a Disney film, something which I felt was missing throughout the whole film or lacked of.

 One of the better moments of the film (Spoiler alert)

On a lighter note, I thought that the snow simulation and art style was brilliantly done. The scene which we see the snow queen build her own palace from scratch and how she was able to make a dress from her powers, was nothing short of amazing. I do however feel that, they focused more on what they were capable of doing with the snow, than on the story.

The film was in my opinion passable, a verdict which I share with Pixar's film, "Brave"; just isn't quite up there with other films like Tangled.