Is Time to Put Frozen II Back on Ice?

 

When I sat down to watch Frozen II, I felt like there was a lot left to be desired throughout the movie. Now the movie is by no means unwatchable, in fact, I watched it at least three times before I wrote this review, just to make sure that my feelings hadn’t changed. But this lukewarm follow-up to the fantastic masterpiece that was Frozen back in 2013, lacked the love and effort that it was owed. 

The story was weak and the plot predictable right from the first scene, where the first movie had a surprising and very touching story about the love of two sisters defying all difficulties. The sequel felt as if it was made so that Disney could squash people’s assumptions that Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna’s (Kristen Bell) parents were neglectful and abusive. I often found the one huge saviour to this movie was the adorable and hilarious ramblings of Olaf (Josh Gad).

After very early on accepting that I wasn’t going to be satisfied by the storyline, I had hoped to find some comfort in the usually beautiful and popular music that Disney is known to produce. Again I was bitterly disappointed. While the music did its job in conveying the gravity to the story and was fairly enjoyable to listen to, it was not memorable and fell very short of the world-famous and powerful Let It Go from the first movie. It didn’t have the same Disney signature and I found myself cringing all the way through Kristoff’s (Jonathan Groff) 80’s style power ballad Lost in the Woods that resembled more of a cheesy music video instead of a classic Disney movie. 

Like with all of Disney and Pixar’s animated movies today, I am always finding myself endlessly in awe of the intricate detail that is put into the animation, right down to the peach fuzz on a character’s face, Frozen II is not an exception to that. The CGI was beautiful and there was always something new to see or catch that was added as a little extra detail, however. While there was a stunning amount of detail in the aesthetic of the characters and their surroundings, I felt that not enough time was spent on perfecting the movement and physics of the characters and their clothes, it was completely unnatural and too jarring to be ignored.  

 In conclusion, I found that the plot and story of Frozen II were weaker than the first movie in all aspects. By no means was it an unenjoyable movie by any standards, it just had the same kind of effect I have felt with many of the Disney sequels to their earlier classics. It had a very strong straight to release feel to it and it left a big part of me hoping that they leave the franchise at that. For me, Frozen II is a movie that will only be watched when there is nothing else to watch.

Final Rating: 5/10