The Snow Queen's Revenge

The Snow Queen's Revenge
Directed by	Martin Gates
Produced by	Martin Gates
Written by	Sue Radley Martin Gates
Starring	Julia McKenzie Tim Healy Hugh Laurie Imelda Staunton
Studio	Martin Gates Productions Carrington Productions
Release date(s)	1996
Running time	65 mins
Country	UK
Language	English

The Snow Queen's Revenge is the 1996 sequel to the 1995 children's fantasy animated film The Snow Queen. It has some of the voice cast changed, including Julia McKenzie cast in the titular role of the Snow Queen.

Plot

Picking up where the previous film left off, with the evil Snow Queen (Helen Mirren) being defeated and frozen. Dimly (Gary Martin) arrives back at the village with Ellie (Ellie Beaven), Tom (Damian Hunt), and Peeps (Hugh Laurie). By now it is almost spring. Back at the Snow Queen's palace, the three trolls, Eric (Tim Healy), Baggy (Colin Marsh) and Wardrobe (Russell Floyd) try to decide what to take with them, so when Dimly returns, he takes Freda (Julia McKenzie) back to the flying school and will return for the trolls. However, Freda loses a small object resembling the head of a reindeer, which Wardrobe takes. As the trolls try to figure out where to go, the Snow Queen's bats take her magic staff and place it in her frozen hand, unfreezing and setting her free moments after Dimly returns. While the trolls are loading many bags and suitcases onto Dimly's back, the Snow Queen confronts them and Eric tells her that Ellie and Tom escaped (though Baggy and Wardrobe are constantly reluctant to turn back to her side). The Snow Queen decides to kidnap Dimly so Ellie will come to her and she can get her revenge. She moves with Dimly and the trolls to the South Pole, as it is now too warm in the North Pole.

During the trip, Eric gets tired of Wardrobe playing with the reindeer head object, so he throws it away, where Peeps finds it. The Snow Queen contacts Ellie and tells her that she has kidnapped Dimly. Ellie doesn't know where the Snow Queen is now, so Peeps takes her to Brenda (Elizabeth Spriggs), a bird that is said to know everything, however she thinks two plus two equals five. She also can't take off from the ground, and must run off a cliff before flying. Meanwhile, the Snow Queen reaches her palace, set on a frozen volcano in the South Pole, and locks Dimly away in a cell next to her ferocious reindeer, which attempt to break into his cell and eat him. Brenda takes Ellie and Peeps toward the South Pole. They stop at a restaurant for food, where the proprietor (a greedy humanoid pig) and her minions capture Brenda and try to cook her to serve as food. Ellie and Peeps stop them, however, and escape, resulting in the wall of their restaurant falling on top of everyone except the proprietor, as she is directly underneath the window.

The Snow Queen begins construction on something that the trolls fear might be another mirror, but is really the Iceosaurus, an ice pterodactyl with eye lasers that can freeze anything. This is her final part of her plan of revenge. Meanwhile, at nighttime, Ellie falls asleep and she and Peeps fall off Brenda and into the ocean, where they are picked up by a humanoid walrus, Clive (Patrick Barlow), and his partner, Rowena (Imelda Staunton), on a ship called the S.S. Quagmire. When Ellie and Peeps describe how they are on their way to the Snow Queen's palace, they realize that she set the whole thing up to lure Ellie there and get revenge. Clive and Rowena are revealed to be bounty hunters, and decide to give Ellie to the Snow Queen for a big reward, and imprison her and Peeps inside an old cage tied to the mast. When Brenda realizes that they have fallen off, she comes back and rescues them, leaving Clive and Rowena to argue and fight over whose fault it is that Ellie escaped.

Brenda, Ellie, and Peeps arrive at the South Pole, but the Iceosaurus freezes Brenda, with Ellie and Peeps still trapped inside the cage. They discover the reindeer head object to be a sort of magic talisman. After they see a vision of Freda inside it, it turns into a wrench that Ellie uses to unlock the cage. Then it turns into a salt shaker which Ellie uses to unfreeze Brenda. Brenda separates from Ellie to find a high place to take off. Ellie and Peeps encounter Pearl (Alison Steadman) and Elspeth (Imelda Staunton), two humanoid penguins who clean the palace for the Snow Queen, and Ellie traps them inside a bubble using the device. They find Dimly and release him from his cell by turning the device into a key, and locking the Snow Queen's reindeer inside. They attempt to escape, but Dimly is too weak to fly at the moment. The Snow Queen and the Iceosaurus attack them, but Freda's device turns into a kind of shield that Ellie uses to deflect the ice beams the Snow Queen shoots at her, eventually causing one to hit the Iceosaurus, which falls and crashes into the ground, causing a massive volcanic eruption. Brenda escapes the flood of lava and gets Ellie, Peeps, and Dimly to safety, while the panicked Snow Queen attempts to flee on feet, but is unable to escape her crumbling palace and falls down into the lava.

As Brenda takes Ellie, Peeps, and Dimly back home, Eric, Baggy, Wardrobe, Pearl, and Elspeth watch as the Snow Queen's castle is destroyed, and walk off once the eruption is over. The final scene shows the Snow Queen emerging and drifting through the river of molten magma, her body intact but now either encased in or turned to stone along with her staff (possibly by her own magic so she would survive). Her eyes glow onimously before the credits roll, indicating that she is still alive and might possibly one day return once again.

Home releases

The Snow Queen's Revenge was released on the DVD by UCA Catalogue in 2004, and then together as a double-pack in 2005. Previously, the film was also released separately on the VHS by Warner Brothers Feature Animation.

Sources

• Toonhound - The Snow Queen's Revenge (1996)

External links

• The Snow Queen's Revenge at the Internet Movie Database