People comparing this movie to big blockbusters like Lord of the Rings or the Matrix will inevitably be disappointed with the way this movie turned out. Although it lacks in the big special effects department and there are no battles with hundreds of extras, there is still a masterful amalgamation of two old folk tales here. The acting talent, although not A-list, is still great and the interaction between the characters is perhaps more sincere than in a larger movie with an A-list cast. My particular favourite from this movie is Bridget Fonda, whose performance as the Snow Queen herself was quite moving, assisted enormously by a stupendous wardrobe and makeup. She injected humanity and a sense of pathos into the character of the fallen season corrupted by the devil's evil magic. Fonda aside the acting was not what we have come to expect from Hollywood, which I think is a good thing since Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas on how to train its acting talent to portray roles and so they have become stale and reliant on CGI and other special effects to take us away from the actors who all use the same tricks on us. Instead it shows new ideas some real thinking on the part of the actors about how they can find new variations on the the old themes of love and danger.

"Snow Queen" is based, of course, on the fairy tale of the same name, collected in (at least) Andersen's Fairy Tales - and, unlike many other recent productions based on other fairy tales, this one retains the spirit of Faerie, an accomplishment not easy and not well understood by many, especially among Americans. Talking animals, arbitrary prohibitions, appearances of goblins, dragons, and demons, are not to be questioned in a fairy tale; they are as natural an element of Faerie as, say, gravity is in the scientific world, and the reason or explanation for them is completely beside the point of the story. Nor is the story bound by modern Hollywood rules of composition: direct, often to the point of being grotesquely linear in lesser works, and obvious (in retrospect, at least).With this defence against the common criticisms of those who do not understand fairy tales, "Snow Queen" is a delightful movie with wonderful visual effects, skillful acting, and great sentiment. The only flaw in the movie was, I think, not that it was too fantastical but that certain parts of the dialogue were too glaringly modern in slang and expression, a mar on its otherwise timeless nature.

Warning: I may include some spoilers in this review.I remember hearing the story of the Snow Queen as a child, and being terrified. The first part of this movie captured that atmosphere entirely as Kai begins to change, but after he is taken and Gerda goes off on her adventures, the tension is mostly lost.Bridget Fonda completely looks the role of the Snow Queen, and is generally pretty good too, especially in what is probably her main line: 'Let the whole world be as I am.' Kai is bland, and Gerda starts the same although as the movie progresses that changes.Some things in the movie just seem to be completely ignored or forgotten. Who is this polar-bear-changed-into-man? Why did the Snow Queen kill Gerda's mother? Why is Autumn a robber? Some parts are also dragged out too much; for instance, the scenes at the beginning of the lovers skating just go on for too long, and begin to feel far too soppy.Contrary to one of the other reviews I've read, I felt the ending was actually pretty good. Winter being carried away by the ex-polar-bear gives the feeling that, rather than the typically stupid idea of 'evil turning good at the last minute', that she instead was merely going back to the way she was, and should have been, that she had been bewitched by the mirror.

Although a fine production with top notch visuals, Snow Queen ultimately is a disapointment. Too long and miscast in several roles, the main problem is the opening hour which sets up a love story between Gerda and Kai. In the original, the main thrust of Gerda's quest to rescue Kai from the Queen was friendship that was revealed to be love at the end, but casting the leads as 18 year olds defeats that revelation.