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Idina Menzel

'Frozen Fever' will warm kids' hearts

Claudia Puig
USA TODAY
Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) wakes up to a very special birthday party hosted by big sister Elsa (Idina Menzel) in a scene from the animated short  'Frozen Fever.' It opens March 13, in front of 'Cinderella.'

It's hard to let Frozen go, and now you don't have to.

The Oscar-winning movie's devotees can revel in the effervescent seven-minute animated short film Frozen Fever for more icy fun (*** out of four; not rated; opens March 13 with Cinderella).

Directed by Frozen filmmakers Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, Fever is centered on a surprise birthday party for Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) thrown by her older sister, Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) in the Norwegian-flavored kingdom of Arendelle.

Elsa wants to make it a perfect day for her sister, so she enlists the help of Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer Sven, as well as Olaf the snowman (Josh Gad).

The good-natured tale revisits some key moments from the 2013 hit and adds some vivid imagery, including emerald-green dresses for the royal sisters. Given the massive popularity of its predecessor — Frozen is the highest-grossing animated film of all time — the short is bound to appeal to legions of fans.

As Elsa showers Anna with gifts and special experiences for her birthday, Elsa begins to sniffle and show signs of sickness. Anna worries that she might be catching a cold.

Elsa dismisses the idea. Besides, she says, "A cold never bothered me anyway."

(The idea for that line might have come from comments Menzel has made about children singing those lyrics from the Frozen hit Let It Go, not realizing the original line was "the cold never bothered me anyway.")

The short, which will run in theaters with Disney's live-action Cinderella, opens with Elsa putting the finishing touches on a beautiful, four-tiered, turquoise-colored ice cream cake, decorated with sunflowers. When she goes to wake her younger sister, Anna is fast asleep and sporting her signature tousled bedhead, a familiar image from the original movie.

This sequel of sorts features an original tune, Making Today a Perfect Day, by Frozen's Oscar-winning musical team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, with the lyrics "We're making today a perfect day for you." It's not as catchy as most of the Frozen soundtrack, but it's pleasant. It's also likely to become a song heard at thousands of little girls' birthday parties.

Although Fever is not as exhilarating and inventive as the original, it's still a treat to see an abridged tale of these two sisters in a warmhearted spinoff.

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