With ‘Frozen,’ Disney gets animated in colder climes [Trailer]

It wasn’t that long ago when Disney was struggling to revive a moribund animation division while its powerhouse subsidiary Pixar was on a serious roll.

Things look a little different these days. “Cars 2” and “Brave,” both released under the Pixar name, were just decently received and not considered the home runs that their predecessors were. “Monsters University,” a sequel out this month, is shaping up as a movie with some similarly mixed reactions. Meanwhile, Disney’s own animation division — admittedly with the help of John Lasseter and Pixar brass — is coming off a major hit with last fall’s “Wreck-It Ralph.”

The company will look to repeat the feat this year with the 3-D “Frozen” a movie co-directed by the writer of ‘Wreck-It Ralph,” Jennifer Lee. The Disney film reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” as an animated tale about a girl (voiced by Kristen Bell) who seeks to rescue her sister and discover why her land has been under an icy spell for so long.

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A new teaser trailer released Tuesday doesn’t show much of that, however. In what’s essentially a light-hearted short. a moose and a snowman battle over his carrot nose. Sound-heavy and word-light, it’s an intriguing way of introducing a movie: not with a sampling of all we can expect but with a self-contained narrative that presumably hints at the feel of the finished film.

That feel? It’s playful, if also more traditional than the modern insider jokiness that distinguished “Wreck-it Ralph.”

“Frozen” hits theaters on Nov. 27.

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