Frozen: The Musical

The Movie Snob leaves the house for a touring Broadway show.

Frozen: The Musical.  A week ago I don’t think I was even aware that there was a Broadway musical based on the Disney movie Frozen, but lo, last night I made the trek down to Fair Park’s Music Hall and saw it.  My reaction:  It’s fine. The children in attendance, including my six-year-old, seemed to really enjoy it.  But was it anything special?  I didn’t really think so.  There are lots of new songs, but none of them made much of an impression on me—not even the one written for Oaken, the guy who runs the snowbound shop where Anna and Christof try to shop for supplies.  (And to say that that song isn’t memorable is pretty remarkable, given that it features a bunch of dancers who I think are supposedly in the buff because they just emerged from a sauna. They’re all wielding leafy branches as fig leaves, and it struck me as comical rather than bawdy.)  And they cut one of the better songs from the movie, namely Anna and Elsa’s duet in Elsa’s ice castle during which Elsa learns she has inadvertently frozen the whole world.  On the other hand, the sets and special effects were pretty impressive, and the vocal talent was good.  Sven the reindeer was entertainingly animated.  Olaf was brought to life by making him a large puppet with his puppeteer standing right behind him, but I didn’t think it was too obtrusive.  Anyhoo, I thought the stage version of Beauty and the Beast was quite a bit better, but this one is fine for an evening’s entertainment.

Over the Moon

Another review from The Movie Snob.

Over the Moon (C). Here’s another Netflix production, although this one apparently got a limited theatrical release in the USA back in October 2020. Like Wish Dragon, it is set in modern-day China. A 13-year-old girl named Fei Fei is still trying to come to terms with her mother’s death a few years earlier when her world is rocked by the news that her father is contemplating remarriage. (The new woman seems perfectly nice, but she has an 8-year-old son who’s more than a little annoying.) Fei Fei addresses this crisis in the only logical way: she builds a rocket ship to the Moon, where she plans to find the legendary goddess who lives there pining for her own lost love, get a selfie with her, and thus prove to her dad that he should stay alone forever. The part of the movie set on the Moon is garish and not especially involving. It’s a musical, but the songs aren’t memorable. The omnipresent Ken Jeong (TV’s Masked Singer and I Can See Your Voice) voices an annoying Moon creature who becomes Fei Fei’s sidekick. Anyhoo, it’s an OK way to spend 90 minutes with your kids, as long as they can handle the film’s strong focus on grief.

Wish Dragon

The Movie Review tackles a fairly recent movie.

Wish Dragon (B). I have an experiment for you to try at home. First, make a wish for a remake of the Disney classic Aladdin set in modern-day China. Next, pull up this 2021 direct-to-Netflix movie. Amazing! It’s like your wish came true! This is actually a pretty good little movie, and if you liked Aladdin I’m confident you’ll like this one. A little boy and girl meet in a poor neighborhood and swear eternal friendship. But then the girl moves away to a rich neighborhood, and years later she has become a famous model. The boy is still living in the old neighborhood, but he dreams of reconnecting with the girl. Enter a magic lamp teapot, complete with a wish dragon inside. The characters are likeable, and the story veers away from Aladdin just enough to keep things interesting. The Movie Snob says check it out!