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jennythemusicmaker
Reviews
The Snow Queen (1995)
Appealing to young ens, but no others.
When I first watched it I found it to be very good. However, I was young at the time. I have a great memory at remembering things and I realised that it just wasn't as good as I thought it to be. OK, so the animation is overall good with bouncy colourful characters like the trolls, to the Snow Queen herself, who is of course more elegant, but has been designed well. The cast was also good, with Hugh Laurie and Helen Mirren being at the top of my list! Shame they changed the names of Gerda and Kay to Tom and Ellie, though. That I didn't really like.
However, the worst criticism I can give this is that it is overall very unrealistic. By that I don't mean flying reindeer, talking animals and magic mirrors. No! That's what fantasy is supposed to be like! I mean how a child of Ellie's age could not know where the North Pole is, or just go gallivanting off to find Tom without taking some kind of food with her! In the real story the boat that Gerda is on takes her downstream, so it's impossible for her to do that, but Ellie chooses to go and rescue Tom herself.
The whole kerfuffle at the gates of the Snow Queen's palace is also a big let down. If Ellie crept into the palace alone without a sound, that would have been good. But it was as though she rang the royal doorbell! She was polite to her enemies and persuaded the trolls by the fact that she had come a long way. This is something that horrible people don't normally care about! I also found Ellie's voice rather annoying at times, which put me off, rather than her being my heroine.
So I give this 4/10.