Must See Movie...

Did you people see the same film I saw?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Don't be fooled into thinking this slush has anything to do with the classic children's Christmas special. In fact, the word Christmas is avoided like the plague, along with almost anything that is connected with Christmas. No Rudolph, no Santa, no Nativity, no Christmas tree; nothing.The holiday referenced? Winter Festival, whatever that is. In the story, it looks like a company picnic thing where a few small carnival booths are erected to take your money in those impossible skill games. Snow is the only thing in the story, and the only source of conflict. Adults hate it. Misled kids hate it. The evil clichéd big business guy really really hates it. So the corporate guy wants to melt all the snow with some aerosol thing, and nobody in the town even cares, except for Frosty and some girl who thinks she's a magician, and her brother. That's it. Oh and Johnathon Winters is there as some little midget that flies around on snowflakes. What he is supposed to be is never explained and never makes sense. Frosty doesn't look or act the same, as he did in the original, and the story line has absolutely no connection to the events and characters of the original. He's as afraid to mention Christmas as everybody else is, and doesn't really have much to do except whine. The writing has no warmth, no humor, no heart. The story (what there is of it) never engages and brings no emotional response when resolved. The animation is cheap and ugly. The characters are poorly developed, if at all.There was a much better sequel to the original Frosty called Frosty's Winter Wonderland, where he meets the love of his life and gets married. See that instead. Hopefully, the network that carries Frosty will start airing that sequel with it, and melt this one down.

If other reviews haven't already told you, this isn't that good a special. I'm not sure why it gets aired as often as it does. I haven't seen the other sequels to Frosty the Snowman, but they are probably better than this. So much of what one loved about the original special is missing in this one. Most of the plot doesn't make sense and none of the characters from the original, save for Frosty, is even in this. Typically, this is a good special to skip while you watch more enjoyable specials that I hope you either have or can find elsewhere. This probably is a good special to some people, but I find this to be very dull and pointless with only wasted time in store for people who watch it.

Frosty the Snowman is a timeless Christmas classic with memorable characters, beautiful music and great animation. Frosty's Winter Wonderland while not as good was quite nice. However, this was close to abominable really. It has little to do with Christmas, and is a mockery of the original. It is completely charmless and quite obnoxious and mean-spirited. The animation is very shoddy, and the music is completely unmemorable. The story is disjointed and laboured, and the writing is dreadful. The characters, including Frosty, are devoid of charm and likability and the villain was actually quite annoying. The voice cast try their best but they are wasted. Overall, an embarrassing mess with few if any redeeming features. 1/10 Bethany Cox

I usually don't comment on material like this, but come ON. This has to be the worst holiday special ever, and I've seen "A Louie Anderson Christmas" which at least had a couple of subtle laughs in it. This one has nothing to offer except a twisted study of, yes, Liberal Hollywood pet issues on display masquerading as entertainment. And no, I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, reached these conclusions on my own, and am appalled by how utterly vapid this is as a family entertainment. Pardon me if I take it seriously, but kids aren't stupid and deserve better than this. First off, Christmas is gone, which is odd considering that Frosty is supposed to be a children's Christmas character. They even took his pipe away since we all know that smoking snowmen will be a bad influence on kids. Instead of a holiday, the focus of the retards in this special's town is a non-denominational "Winter Carnival" that is featured so prominently in the dialog that you get the feeling at the screenplay stage somebody literally crossed out the word "Christmas" whenever it was used and wrote "Winter Carnival" over it instead in an effort to make the cartoon more audience-inclusive for those who don't celebrate Christmas. Gee. Also, the whole "miracle" of Frosty's creation is utterly ignored (which makes sense, since we're working any kind of spiritual angle out of this to make way for more consumerism), making the choice of Frosty as the focal character arbitrary & meaningless. Why didn't they just create their own non-denominational Winter Carnival character? The answer is to cash in on the public's fondness for the popular Rankin/Bass cartoons that came before. It's just crass commercialism.Next, the bad guy in the plot is a mean wicked Capitalist who drives around in a stretch limousine polluting the environment with aerosol spray can chemicals that eliminate snow, with his flunky brainwashed nature backstabbing rabbit doing the dirty work. It's not magic spray or anything either, just chemistry, and the mean rich Capitalist threatens to disrupt the non-denominational Winter Carnival by making the snow disappear without even asking for anyone's permission first. He just goes ahead and does it to impose his own will upon nature, just like certain pinheads would have you believe that the world's industry does in a deliberate effort to ruin the planet. Even more telling is that the meanie Capitalist isn't even allowed to learn or grow or be changed by the events, he's simply a two dimensional bastard for everyone to hate and go right on hating even after the show is over.Which brings us to the issue of environmentalism, clumsily imposed on the story in the cartoon's big moment of revelation where the mean Capitalist is exposed as the threat to everyone's communal happiness as he is lectured to by an 8 year old girl about how snow is as important as sunlight and rain and, yes, clean air for everyone to breathe. This isn't holiday entertainment, it's a subtle form of indoctrination aimed at school kids. And I'd like to invite whomever came up with the idea about grumpy fun-wrecking adults not enjoying shoveling to come to Syracuse and deal with my sidewalk after a healthy dose of lake effect snow. Just once.That leaves us with the songs, which are execrable. Why didn't they bother to get Joan Baez or someone with some actual talent to work these political messages into some songs worth listening to? The answer is because it didn't matter, and that the whole special is a contrivance. I'm one of those people who think that entertainment for children should be even more meaningful and worthwhile than entertainment for adults and something about this special doesn't pass the smell test. It comes across as a filmed deal with a bunch of celebrities providing the voices because their agents thought it would be a good career move to be involved with a non- denominational seasonal family special that has an environmental message to it.2/10: Skip it.