Frozen was and is a bona fide cultural phenomenon and I’m willing to bet Frozen 2 will make similarly big waves at the box office. However, it seems that the general moviegoing public does have limits as to how much Frozen they want in their lives. At least, judging by the frosty (get it?) reception received by the 22 minute short Olaf’s Frozen Adventure that was screened before Pixar’s Coco. The reaction to it’s been so bad, in fact, that Disney will soon pull the damn thing from all screenings of the film.
Aside from 22 minutes seriously stretching the definition of an animated ‘short,’ Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is a nauseatingly calculated slice of faux-holiday cheer delivered by a gurning snowman monstrosity that only just squeaked into ‘likeable’ territory in the original film. Worse yet, it simply lacked the spark of comedy, adventure and fairytale sincerity that helped Frozen reach such a wide audience.
That being said, I think Olaf’s Frozen Adventure will probably do better on televisions than at the cinema. Audiences expecting Pixar were understandably a bit put out to find Disney sneaking into their theater instead of the always-excellent Pixar shorts (word is they simply didn’t have anything ready to go, having attached Lou to Cars 3).
More importantly, you can just change the damn channel if the snowman’s low-brow slapstick gets a bit much, something you don’t have the luxury of doing in the cinema. Finally, the thing was written with the intention of it being transmitted as part of a holiday special, so it will at least be in its natural habitat.
ABC are including Olaf’s Frozen Adventure as part of their 25 Days of Christmas festivities, showing it at 8pm EST on Thursday, December 14th. Having said all that, the short is now the butt of so many jokes and the target of so much hatred that it’s always going to feel a little tainted.
If you saw it before Coco, though, what did you think? Would you sit through it again at home? Let us know in the comments section down below.
