10 Terrible Plot Twists From Otherwise Awesome Movies
7. Frozen - Prince Hans Is The Bad Guy
Frozen might've been completely trivialized at this point, but ah well. It's still a very accomplished family film and one of Disney's finest post-Renaissance offerings. That's not to say it's perfect, though, and this royally dumb twist is the picture's biggest mistake.
About 15 minutes before the end of Frozen, it suddenly turns out that Prince Hans (Santino Fontana) - the love interest of Anna (Kristen Bell) - is actually the bad guy, and he's planning to kill both Anna and Elsa (Idina Menzel) in order to become king. Why on earth did they bother with such a pointless twist villain?
Perhaps they were worried that audiences wouldn't accept a Disney film without a clear, unambiguous villain? Or perhaps this was designed as a subversion of the traditional Disney love story? Regardless, neither would make for particularly good excuses. Several other Disney movies, such as Encanto, were loved by audiences and they didn't have a villain in sight, and if Disney wanted to subvert the formula then they needed to actually take the time to do it in a way that felt earned.
Having the Prince Charming figure as the bad guy was a good idea on paper, so this is a frustrating case. If the film had developed Hans more and presented him as a villain from earlier on, this character might not have felt so completely slapdash.