The result of a decade-long effort by the studio to fashion an animated feature from Andersen’s classic “The Snow Queen,” “Frozen” ultimately bears only the most superficial resemblance to its source, the haunting story of a young girl’s efforts to free her true love from the mind-altering effects of a cursed mirror and the icy lair of the eponymous snow spirit. Instead, writer-directors Chris Buck (a veteran Disney animator with credits dating back to “The Fox and the Hound”) and Jennifer Lee (who co-scripted “Wreck-It Ralph”) give us a more conventional tale of two sisters, younger Anna (Kirsten Bell) and elder Elsa (Idina Menzel), heirs to the enchanted Scandinavian kingdom of Arendelle (also a return of sorts to Disney tradition after the dutiful PC dues-paying of “Pocahontas,” “Mulan” and “The Princess and the Frog”).

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As seen in the movie’s opening moments, the girls are the closest of childhood friends, their playtime enhanced by Elsa’s unexplained ability to conjure a wonderland of ice and snow at the literal waving of her fingertips. But like Midas’ golden touch, Elsa’s powers soon seem more curse than blessing. When an errant icicle nearly proves fatal to Anna, the King and Queen seal the castle gates, while Elsa further cuts herself off from that circumscribed world, coming of age in solitude even after a shipwreck leaves her and Anna orphans.

Only as Elsa’s coronation day draws near does she emerge from her seclusion, still uncertain as to whether or not she can control her “gift” (which, like the telekinetic rage of Stephen King’s Carrie, seems to be triggered by intense surges of emotion). Meanwhile, Anna has had all memory of her childhood trauma wiped, “Men in Black”-style, by some friendly neighborhood trolls, leaving her all the more miffed by big sis’ literal and figurative cold shoulder.

These early passages play out pleasantly enough, enhanced by nice detail work showing the bustle of daily Arendelle life and an amusing turn by Alan Tudyk (last seen as “Ralph’s” megalomaniacal Turbo) as the nosy, diminutive Duke of neighboring Weselton (which, to his great consternation, everyone mispronounces as Weaseltown). But the narrative of “Frozen” only really kicks into gear with the palace ball following the coronation, where everything seems to be going hunky-dory until Anna makes the mistake of asking her sister’s permission to marry the dashing Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana) — whom, admittedly, she only met earlier that same day. To say that Elsa’s reaction puts a chill in the air would be an arctic understatement. (Think Carrie’s prom crossed with the Ice Capades.)