Frozen (PG, 108 mins)

Frozen (PG, 108 mins)

Directors: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck

4 stars

This is more like it. Coming at the end of the most dismal year imaginable for animated movies, Disney's Frozen arrives packed with the kind of quality we've been hankering after for an age, and delivers pretty much everything you could want from a cartoon musical.

It's loosely inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's story of The Snow Queen, but only as a jumping off point for what seems, in this comic-book-to-movie world we now live in, like a super-villain origin story.

Set in what appears to be Norway a couple of centuries ago, although it barely matters, we enter the royal palace to meet young sisters Elsa and Anna.

Elsa has the ability to create ice and snow from nothing, and they frolic in the grand halls of their palace, Elsa creating slides and snowmen for Anna, much to her younger sister's delight.

From this magical and carefree opening, the seeds of the deep sorrow that pervades Frozen are sown.

Elsa accidentally hurts Anna and, unable to control her powers, she's locked away in the palace for her and everyone's protection. It's decided that Anna shouldn't be told about her sister's powers, her memory of the magic wiped away by the trolls that save her.

The years pass with them apart and Elsa and Anna (now voiced by Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell) grow into young women, until all the kingdoms gather for Elsa's coronation.

But Elsa's powers get the better of her and she flees the palace after unwittingly covering the land in a permanent winter.

Though at its heart a classical princess story, Frozen scores by not rehashing the go-to Disney trope of the lead being unsatisfied with their lot.

There's no selfishness driving the story here, but love and compassion and the need for forgiveness.

It's blessed with strong and appealing leads in Elsa and Anna, but they're aided by a whole bunch of feisty and funny supporting turns.

Anna gets helped by ice-seller Kristoff, and he and his non-talking reindeer get some great comedy moments. Stealing the show though is Olaf (Josh Gad), a snowman who longs for summer, and his every moment is a joy.

But the comedy doesn't come at the expense of the emotional impact and lasting depth of a story cut through with danger as well as laughs.

Above all it's a story of sisters, family, love and acceptance. The breathtaking visuals are just gravy.

There are lots of songs, most of them more like showtunes than typical animation numbers. They're all very solid, but not especially memorable, falling just below excellent.

The show-stopping centrepiece Let It Go is a different matter though, and you'd be a fool to bet against it picking up the best song Oscar.

The movie itself has the animated feature Oscar all sown up, and amazingly it will be the first Disney movie to do so.

Is Frozen the best Disney animated feature since The Lion King? You'd be hard pushed to think of a better one. The best animation of 2013? There isn't even a challenger.

See it if you liked: Tangled, Rise of the Guardians, Brave

Homefront (15, 100 mins)

Director: Gary Fleder

2 stars

Jason Statham starts out this dopey action thriller as an undercover narc, busting a big drugs ring during which the son of the boss is killed.

Two years later he and his daughter have relocated to a small town where trouble starts to find them, particularly once James Franco's ambitious local meth dealer gets involved.

Thugs come looking for him and he batters them handily, as is the Stath way, but there isn't too much of this in the first half, instead a lot of posturing and plot placement.

The screenplay is by Statham's Expendables buddy Sylvester Stallone, which isn't a good thing.

Stallone has written some fine films in his time, but this isn't one of them, filled with little more than foul-mouthed dialogue and a few too many ingredients.

When it works, it's as a reasonably satisfying good guy versus bad guys escapade, but it just doesn't work often enough.

See it if you liked: Parker, The Mechanic, Hummingbird

Kill Your Darlings (15, 104 mins)

Director: John Krokidas

3 stars

It's 1943 and Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) heads to Columbia University with dreams of becoming a poet.

There he takes up with the beats, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs et al, all jazz and booze and bohemian lifestyles.

We've seen this crowd a lot in films recently, with limited success, but the early focus on their revolution in poetry, railing against the establishment of rhyme and meter, is compelling, managing the rare trick of making the writing process interesting.

Of slightly lesser interest are their romantic entanglements; Ginsberg is in love with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) and jealousies form between them and Michael C. Hall's older associate.

A plunge into murder and betrayal takes it into areas that allow Kill Your Darlings to stand apart from other films of its ilk, though it does run out of runway before the end.

See it if you liked: Howl, On the Road, Beat

Powder Room (15, 86 mins)

Director: MJ Delaney

2 stars

Sam (Sheradin Smith), in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, heads out for a night of clubbing with her best friends.

Most of this low budget British comedy drama takes place in the toilet of the club, where they discuss their lives and loves amid fights and fallouts, mostly caused by Sam pretending she's still with her boyfriend.

At times it's as intolerable as actually being in a club - noisy, dull and not very funny, and things only gets progressively more unpleasant as the night gets messier.

The single setting betrays its origins as a play, and there's little that can be done to escape the theatricality, and though Smith is good value, there's little of insight here.

Powder Room might score big on authenticity, but that doesn't mean we want to watch it.

Marius/Fanny (12A/PG, 94/102 mins)

Director: Daniel Auteuil

4 stars

French star Daniel Auteuil directs these first two parts of Marcel Pagnol's frequently filmed trilogy, a tender love story set in 1930s Marseille.

The first part focuses on Marius (Raphaël Personnaz), who longs to go to sea, something he can't bring himself to tell lifelong friend Fanny (Victoire Bélézy).

The pair are clearly in love with each other but unable to admit it, and though their tentative romance is sweet, you'd quite like to give them a shake sometimes.

Auteuil also gives himself a nice comic relief role as Marius' father, but there's room for poignancy too.

It's all very twee and perhaps a little theatrical, with its limited sets and old fashioned behaviour. But give in to its warmth and you'll be counting the days until the arrival of the third part in the trilogy, César.