Three movies to watch before seeing ‘Frozen’

Disney's "Frozen" hits theatres this week, and based on the reviews, it appears that the animation studio behind such classics as "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Lion King" are back in fine form. It's been a shaky decade or so for Walt Disney Animation Studios, a period that saw the company transition from traditional hand-drawn animation to the computer generated kind.

Loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Snow Queen,” "Frozen" follows a young princess named Anna (Kristen Bell) as she embarks on a journey to find her elder sister Elsa, whose magical abilities have accidentally trapped their kingdom in an eternal winter. The film is one of Disney's longest gestating projects; the House of Mouse have been trying to develop an animated film based the Andersen fairy tale since the 1940s. “Frozen” was co-directed by longtime Disney animator Chris Buck (“Tarzan”) and screenwriter Jennifer Lee (“Wreck-It Ralph”) and stars Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad.

But before you buy your tickets, here are three frosted family movies you should check out before seeing “Frozen.”

“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” (2005)

If you threw the “Harry Potter” films and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy into a blender, you’d probably end up with something resembling Disney’s version of “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Based on the first book in author C.S. Lewis’ series of seminal children’s stories, 2005’s “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” sees four school children travel to a magical kingdom under threat from an evil witch. If any of this seems familiar, that’s because Lewis’ novel borrowed many elements from Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” (the basis for “Frozen”), including the seemingly endless winter that Narnia finds itself caught in and the seduction of one of the main characters by the witch/queen.

“Ice Age” (2002)

Set during the onset of an Ice Age, a sloth (John Leguizamo), a sabertooth tiger (Denis Leary), and a wooly mammoth (Ray Romano) team up to help reunite a human baby with his migrating tribe. Like “Frozen,” the CG-animated “Ice Age” began its development as a traditionally animated film (to be directed by “The Land Before Time”’s Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, no less), but the commercial failure of the movie “Titan A.E.” resulted in the shutdown Fox’s animation division. “Ice Age” spawned three enormously popular and successful sequels, a TV special, and several short films. A fifth “Ice Age” movie is rumoured to be in development.

“Eight Below”

Who doesn’t love a heartwarming movie about dogs? It’s the reason why there are a million and one “Air Bud” movies. "Eight Below" is one such film, but one that just so happens to be based on an incredible true story. The film follows eight sled dogs left behind on an Antarctic expedition gone wrong, and chronicles their trainer's desperate efforts to rescue them. In addition to two Alaskan Malamutes and six Siberian Huskies, "Eight Below" also stars Paul Walker, Jason Biggs, and Bruce Greenwood. Inspired by real events that befell a 1958 expedition to Antarctica, the story was first the subject of a 1983 film called “Nankyoku Monogatari,” a Japanese movie that presents a much harsher version of the story where more than half the dogs die. Don't worry, though, only two dogs die in the Disney version, and one of them passes away from old age.

If you're planning to see "Frozen" this weekend, be sure to bundle up! Whether it's snowing in your part of the country or not, the Disney animated film, along with the movies listed above, are sure to get you in the winter spirit.

"Frozen" is now playing.