The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, March 18, 2015 — 5A

‘Frozen on Ice’ is
faithful to film

Movie adaptation
exceeds writer’s

expectations

By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

Daily Arts Writer

“Why are you going home

this weekend?”

“I’m going to ‘Frozen on

Ice,’ ” I said,
straight-faced.
I don’t mess
around
when

it comes to the
“awesomely
cool”
new

age
classic

(the
tickets

were free, so
that didn’t hurt either). But no
matter the ticket price, it was
certainly a spectacle worth
seeing.

Before the show at The

Palace, a cast of classic Disney
characters glided across the
ice gracefully to get the child-
dominated crowd prepped for
the show. Princes, princesses,
lions, fish and a nightmarish
Pumba did rounds with their
specific theme songs before
the show got underway. Mickey
began to tell Minnie (let the
record show that they are
married,
NOT
brother
and

sister, as I have thought my
entire life) a story about true
love, between sisters. It was
a progressive message that
most Disney stories haven’t
yet embraced compared to the
typical prince/princess story
lines.

Out
of
excitement
for

“Frozen,”
moments
before

the show began, I had a minor
panic attack, a reaction friends
who I brought for moral support
successfully made fun of. Wait,
will it be the actors’ voices? Or
the ice skaters’ voices? Will it
be the skaters singing? I do not
give a shit about their voices.
GIVE ME IDINA MENZEL
AND KRISTEN BELL OR GIVE
ME DEATH. After a vocally
questionable intro with Sven
and Kristoff, it was clear they
kept near identical voices to the
movie and the exact soundtrack
recording
for
the
musical

numbers. Phew.

Furthermore (and I guess

more
importantly
than
my

burning
questions)
the
ice

skating adaption stayed true
to the film’s plot points, with
minor cuts due to restrictions
by the live production. Elsa and
Anna’s parents were not present
in the performance (But do we
care? They were kind of dicks).
Anna falls into a fruit stand
instead of a boat when she first
meets ultimate fuck-boy Prince
Hans. But no worries, the really
important stuff is still there.
Olaf’s head comes off as many
times as I could’ve asked for, Elsa
whips off her cape in her fuck-
you-guys-I’m-awesome anthem
“Let it Go,” and of course, there
was
an
impressively
large,

inflated snow monster, which
successfully scared the shit out of
the young children surrounding
me.

The
live
production
was

impressive to say the least. It
came with snow falling from the
ceiling, sparks and the occasional
flame. A contraption on the
ceiling worked in tandem with

a staircase on the floor to give a
buyable version of Elsa’s HGTV-
dream ice castle.

The biggest disappointment

of the show was definitely when
several green balls (presumably
trolls) rolled across the ice into
a woodlands set. We waited
and waited for people on skates
to burst out of their balls into
full-on troll-hood, but to no
avail. Soon after Anna and
Kristoff’s dialogue, the balls
rolled away and skaters came
onto the ice separately. A small,
yet
extremely
disappointing

moment.

Sans
some
ball-enclosed

Trolls, “Frozen on Ice” was
everything I expected it could
be. I got to sing “Let it Go”
alongside an arena full of
tiny humans, and believe it or
not still got a little choked up
when Anna saved Elsa. The ice-
skating added another aspect
to the “Frozen” story, and the
actors skated flawlessly around
the arena floor for two hours
slowing
through
dialogue

and catchy musical numbers.
Leaving Ann Arbor for the
day and missing that party at
Tower Plaza that was all over
Yik Yak was totally worth it.
“Frozen on Ice” was totally
worth it.

A-

Frozen
on Ice

The Palace of
Auburn Hills

‘Returned’ mimics
French predecessor

By MATT BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

A bus full of high schoolers

careens off a mountain side.
Four years later, a girl named
Camille Winship (India Enne-
ga,
“Treme”)

climbs
up

from the same
spot
the
bus

fell. She walks
home through
her
town
of

Caldwell,
Washington.
She gets home,
where
her

mother Claire
(Tandi Wright,
“Jack the Giant
Slayer”),
hav-

ing just lit candles at a shrine for
her daughter, stares at Camille.
While Claire stands silently
shocked but happy, Camille
remains oblivious, not know-
ing she’s been dead for four
years and hasn’t aged a day.

Based on the Internation-

al
Emmy-winning
French

drama “Les Revenants,” “The
Returned”
is
a
perplexing

remake developed by the pro-
lific Carlton Cuse who also
produces A&E’s “Bates Motel,”
a show which “The Returned”
complements nicely consider-
ing both of their dark natures.
At least for its first episode,
“The Returned” remains large-
ly, sometimes overly, faithful
to its French counterpart and
effectively captures a sense of
psychological complexity and
unease within its small town
setting.

Just like the idea of people

returning from the dead, “The
Returned” is a difficult show
to initially wrap one’s head
around. The show challenges
viewers to think of the conse-

quences that a person returning
from the dead might yield. None
of the answers are exactly easy
to grapple with.

By
primarily
maintaining

focus on the Winship family in
its first episode, the show gauges
the effects that a loss can have on
a family and how this supernatu-
ral interference can further open
these wounds. The home Camille
returns to is drastically different
than the one she left four years
ago. Her parents are divorced, as
her father Jack (Mark Pellegrino,
“Lost”), is particularly embit-
tered, angrily attending group
grief counseling sessions led by
Peter Lattimore (Jeremy Sisto,
“Suburgatory”) – who is now see-
ing Claire. Meanwhile, her iden-
tical twin Lena (Sophie Lowe,
“Once Upon a Time in Wonder-
land”) has aged four years and
deals with her problems by par-
tying at the local bar.

The family’s reactions to

Camille’s return run the gaunt-
let of emotion. Claire’s initial
happiness contrasts with the
almost horror experienced by
Lena. While Jack emotionally
questions, “What kind of accep-
tance am I supposed to have
now?” when talking to his wife
and Peter, he reflects the inher-
ent sadness of what Camille will
have to face, saying, “She has
absolutely no idea what she’s
returned to.” The performance

of Pellegrino is the strongest
from any actor in this impres-
sively acted premiere. Jack is a
troubled man who now has to
wrestle with the guilt of seeing
his daughter return to a broken
home.

Camille is not the only

deceased to return though.
There’s Simon Moran (Mat
Vairo, “Revolution”) who wan-
ders the town trying to find his
bride-to-be Rowan (Mary Eliz-
abeth Winstead, “Scott Pilgrim
vs. the World”). And there’s the
mysterious silent boy known
only as Victor (Dylan Kin-
gwell, “Big Eyes”), among sev-
eral other plotlines introduced.
There is an unease in the pre-
miere regarding these returns.
The night of the returns cov-
ers the town in shadows and
characters attempt to navigate
the unknown territory they are
experiencing. The efficient use
of the Dutch angle in cinema-
tography makes several interac-
tions with the title “Returned”
feel effectively off, as though
reality were rejecting the very
concept that has been made
real. The use of these tech-
niques displays an influence
of horror in the series which
is further reinforced by turns
“The Returned” makes near the
end of its premiere.

The
success
of
“The

Returned” lies in it being able
to distinguish itself from its
acclaimed predecessor. In the
coming episodes, the show will
need to take opportunities to
diverge, tinker or subvert what
came before instead of strictly
following the blueprint of “Les
Revenants.” The pieces are
there for a strong debut season,
but it’s up to Carlton Cuse and
his writers to effectively adapt
the source material beyond a
simple copy.

B

The
Returned

Season 1,
Episodes 1-3

Mondays
at 10 p.m.

A&E

DISNEY ON ICE

Prince Fuckboi.

A&E

“I hear dead people.”

GIVE ME

KRISTEN BELL

OR GIVE ME

DEATH

VIDEO GAME REVIEW
‘Rainbow Curse’ is
lazy game-making

By JACOB RICH

Daily Film Editor

“Kirby and the Rainbow Curse”

looks absolutely amazing. Its
unique blend of Claymation and
CGI gives the
game a fabu-
lous,
colorful

look that’s much
more
consis-

tently
appeal-

ing than other
games like “The
Neverhood” and
“Clay
Fighter”

that attempted
video
game

Claymation
back in the ’90s.

Unfortunate-

ly, it’s also total-
ly boring. Its unique look just isn’t
enough to make up for its lacklus-
ter level design and heavily flawed
cooperative gameplay.

“Kirby and the Rainbow Curse”

is a 2-D platformer controlled

exclusively using the Wii U Game-
pad’s touch screen. Kirby (whose
limbs have been compacted in
what we can only assume was a
truly horrific accident) takes the
form of a sphere, which the player
controls using rainbow pathways
he or she draws with the stylus. It’s
the same system used in the early
DS game “Kirby: Canvas Curse,”
only it’s way less interesting here.
Kirby can’t copy the abilities of
his enemies, and the gameplay
of “Rainbow Curse” feels empty
without this staple ability that
has consistently been the most
interesting part of “Kirby” games
throughout the series’ long history.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by

Nintendo’s other recently released
platformers, like “Donkey Kong
Country: Tropical Freeze” and
“Super Mario 3D World.” These
games are highly regarded for
introducing a new gameplay con-
cept into every single level, always
shaking things up enough to
keep its solid base of platforming

mechanics interesting through-
out. “Rainbow Curse” fails to
reach this high bar. By the second
world, I was tired of controlling
Kirby with the stylus and the over-
ly simple mechanics introduced
as I progressed had me clamor-
ing for complexity. I can remem-
ber most of the levels in “Super
Mario Galaxy 2,” because of the
new gameplay dimensions it intro-
duced in each of its dozens of lev-
els. I’d be hard-pressed to come up
with more than a few innovative
mechanics introduced in “Rain-
bow Curse.”

The game tries to shake up the

typically bland level design with
simple vehicle-based segments.
Sadly, these levels fail to interest
after their initial impact, and they
quickly become just as boring as
their more standard counterparts.

The game’s end-of-world bosses

are initially moments of intrigue
among the blandness, but only for
the first three worlds. The bosses
of worlds four through six are re-

D+

Kirby
and the
Rainbow
Curse

Wii U
exclusive

Nintendo

skins of the first three bosses. It’s
an
inexcusable
corner-cutting

measure, proving that this game
likely would have been better if it
had more development time.

The game offers cooperative

play for up to four players, but this
cooperative experience is heavily
flawed. No matter what, the first
player dictates the boundaries of
the screen as Kirby (the other play-
ers follow along with Wii remotes
as secondary “Waddle Dee” char-
acters). While I played through
World One with two other players,
the newcomers were consistently

warped to my location after lag-
ging behind or running ahead of
me. Besides being able to attack
foes, they had no agency over the
level’s progression and quickly
became frustrated. The co-op in
“Rainbow Curse” typically boils
down to “run around pointlessly
while player one actually accom-
plishes things,” completely defeat-
ing the purpose of multiplayer.

To
make
matters
worse,

playing in co-op mode adds a
tedious mini-boss fight into each
level, in which the non-Kirby
players must defeat an enemy that

grabs and restrains Player One.
It feels like a lame concession
to the co-op players, with the
designers acknowledging the
lack of substantive multiplayer
gameplay.

If you’re looking for a great

Wii U platformer, leave “Rain-
bow Curse” in the dust and head
straight for “Donkey Kong Coun-
try: Tropical Freeze,” a game
with infinitely better level design
and a whole lot more heart.

“Kirby and the Rainbow Curse”

was reviewed using a digital copy
provided by Nintendo.

NINTENDO

A Rainbow Curse doesn’t sound all that bad, actually.

It challenges
viewers to
think about

consequences.