EVER since Pixar came to dominate the animation landscape, the traditional musical animation has taken a bit of a sideline until recently.

Now with screen and tv musicals becoming more popular (High School Musical, Glee) it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see a return to the kind of animation we were used to with The Lion King, Aladdin and so on.

Frozen, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, is very much framed along these lines.

Anna (Kristen Bell) is a young princess who is brought up in isolation in a palace, after an incident with her sister Elsa’s (Idina Menzel) magic powers nearly cost her life.

When their parents are lost at sea, Elsa assumes the throne, but a misunderstanding with Anna sees her lose control of her power – she freezes everything – and flee the kingdom while bringing an eternal winter to her hometown.

Anna goes after her, leaving the kingdom in the hands of a man she is engaged to after just one day. Along the way she runs into rough and ready ice salesman Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his pet reindeer and a magical snowman called Olaf who help get to her sister’s new ice palace and try to end the winter.

Frozen is a charming and absolutely perfect family film for Christmas. It’s definitely one for the young and those who love musicals.

It’s not quite in the same league as Pixar’s work (Toy Story, Brave, Up etc…) but is great fun nonetheless.

The songs are not as memorable as other Disney films, and have the feel of pretty much every other musical out there at the moment, but this is a minor criticism and one which won’t really affect its target audience.

It’s a heartwarming film for this time of year and once the school holidays start, definitely one for a cinema outing.

7/10