Film Review: Frozen II

I know it’s kind of a cool thing now to talk about how you think Frozen is overrated or whatever, but you ain’t getting that from me. I can still recall seeing a late preview screening after work in 2013, with my only impressions being those deceptively wacky trailers they put out, and I was almost immediately enamored by it. I loved the songs, I loved its combination of classical Disney sensibilities and subversive themes, I love the sly humor, and I found it to be deeply moving as well. It eventually came as no surprise that it became as big of a phenomenon as it did, and I think it was well deserved.

So, naturally, Disney had to get a sequel made, which we finally have a whopping six years later with Frozen II, which features the same creative team as the first in directors, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, with Lee also doing the screenplay, as well as Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez writing the songs and Christophe Beck doing the score. It takes place a few years after the events of the first film, and we find Elsa (Idina Menzel) hearing a strange vocal noise that seems to be calling her. So, she teams up with Anna (Kristen Bell), Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), and Olaf (Josh Gad) to discover the source of the call, which will involve them finding out secrets from their past.

I think no matter how you look at whether Frozen II was a success or not, I think there’s a lot to appreciate, especially in seeing what the filmmakers didn’t do. It isn’t a repeat of the original story. It expands the world and the characters, in the same way that some of the best sequels do. It also takes a bit of a genre shift as well going from the light princess romp of the first film to full blown fantasy epic with this new film. The first film was tight, but this one is dense with character and lore and mythology. It’s far more plot heavy, and the tone is also a touch more somber and melancholic.

The film seems to go out of its way to complicate things for our characters, which is always a compelling move to change up the dynamic, and I was totally into the choices that they eventually decided to make here. It’s clear Lee doesn’t just want us satisfied with spending time with these characters again, she wants to show how they progress, how they grow, and how they deal with the challenges presented by them, many of which are informed by history and how things weren’t as they seemed to be.

With the film’s grand ambitions, there is sadly some sloppiness that comes along with its sweeping drama. The storytelling isn’t the most smooth, and the way it balances all the characters, especially after they begin splitting up, is a bit clunky. Some scenes of exposition don’t quite make things as clear as it should be, and as a result, there are moments where the pacing is lacking in the urgency that the first film had.

However, if you have read my reviews before you know that I have a soft spot films that are ambitious and kinda messy, and Frozen II is no exception to that. Much of it is due to the fact that I’m happy spending more time with these characters, but there are some great individual character moments that pushed them in interesting ways, especially when it comes to the bond between Anna and Elsa, which is still the strongest, most affecting element of these films.

The songs are not quite as strong as the numbers of the first film, but they are still good. I really enjoyed Kristoff’s big number called “Lost In The Woods,” which plays out like a full on 80s love ballad. While Elsa’s two major songs, “Into The Unknown” and “Show Yourself” don’t reach the heights of “Let It Go,” they’re still strong for the film, and it helps that Menzel still brings everything to the vocals, as do the rest of the cast. Some newcomers including Sterling K. Brown, Martha Plimpton, Jason Ritter do solid work, despite not having as much material as I would’ve liked to have seen.

Thinking about Frozen II the more I sit with it, the more I do like and appreciate it, even if I don’t love it as much as the first Frozen. It’s still a great time, the songs are lovely, the humor is solid, and do I even need to say the animation is gorgeous? Because it’s gorgeous. It’s a thoughtful story where our characters are forced to change, confront certain legacies, explore sisterhood, and it does it all in a deeply felt way. This whole thing brings to mind another highly anticipated animated sequel from earlier this year, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, which I feel has largely been forgotten about now, unfortunately. Like that film, Frozen II seems to have been made because of a demand before the filmmakers could even consider whether there is something worthwhile here, a new story to tell. And in spite of that hurdle, I think it succeeds. I had a wonderful time with Frozen II, I’m still invested in these characters, and I was taken aback by some of the wild directions that the story took, and I would happily see where these characters go from here.