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Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee; Screenwriter Jennifer Lee, Shane Morris; Starring: Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk; Running time: 102 mins; Certificate: PG

Everybody remembers their first Disney film. The most remarkable thing about Frozen, the fairytale adaptation that has been in the works for more than half a century, is that it feels like your first Disney film all over again, with all the dizzying joy and emotional power that implies. Eschewing the traditional boy-girl core story in favor of the relationship between two sisters, this is Disney Animation Studios' strongest outing in years. With heart and wit and powerhouse songs in spades, it has the feeling of an instant classic.

When an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen was first mooted back in 1943, the reason it stalled came down not to technological limitations but to a writing problem. Walt & co couldn't find a way to make the title character - in the original a mysterious and frightening figure who periodically kidnapped children - resonate with their audience. Planned as a hand-drawn animation, the CG version that has finally emerged 70 years later from co-directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee is as lovingly detailed as anything in the Disney canon, if only loosely adapted from the source.

'Frozen' film still
Fronting a cast full of Broadway alums, Idina Menzel voices Elsa, a young princess who discovers that she wields an ancient power over snow and ice. As she grows older, her powers grow dangerously beyond her control and her well-meaning parents keep her in isolation, leaving her bemused sister Anna (Kristen Bell) to grow up on the opposite side of a symbolic locked door. On the day of Elsa's coronation as queen, her powers are accidentally revealed and she's decried as a monster, driven into exile by an opportunistic duke (Alan Tudyk).

Frozen is a story rooted in female power; Elsa's escalating, uncontrollable strength is a stand-in for womanhood, or more generally individuality, with all its capacity both to empower and to isolate her. The lesson she learns - to express her power rather than contain it - is the kind you want every children's film to contain. It also fuels Menzel's showstopper 'Let It Go', one of many powerhouse creations by Avenue Q and Book of Mormon duo Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

But it's Bell's gutsy, relatable Anna who becomes the story's heart and soul. With Elsa's emotions having plunged the kingdom into eternal winter, Anna sets out on an arduous journey to bring her estranged sister home. Along the way she's aided by socially awkward mountain man Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven and a simple-minded snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad), who make up an endearing trio in the same vein as Up's motley crew.

While the love triangle that develops between Anna, Kristoff and neighbouring royal Hans (Santino Fontana) is entertaining and surprising on every level you could wish, it plays continual second fiddle to the sisters' fraught bond. A climactic moment of peril for Anna resolves with a thrilling inversion of a well-established fairytale trope.

Frozen is an exhilarating, joyous, human story that's as frequently laugh-out-loud funny as it is startling and daring and poignant. Hot on the heels of the 90th anniversary, it's impossible to imagine a more perfect celebration of everything Disney is at its best.

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