Guys. I’m really scared. I think this might be it.
I mean, I know we’ve had our share of close calls and near misses, but I can’t shake the feeling that this really is the big one. This is finally how it all ends.
“Aw shit!”
“AAAAAAAH WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
“OH PLEASE GOD NO!”
“What?! What are you talking about?! I just meant I’m worried about the current state of the Disney canon movies!”
“Ohhhhhhhh…”
“What did you think I meant?”
“Oh nothing, nothing. Everything’s just grand.”
I mean seriously, I am concerned. Have you heard about Raya and the Last Dragon? It’s the next canon movie, due for release in November of this year, which feels like a long time because we’re all doing jail time right now and time passes slower on the inside but it’s also really not that far away. And after that?
Nothing.
Zip.
Bupkiss.
There are no officially announced Disney canon movies after Raya. And, while I’ll be the first to admit I’m not as plugged into the Disney fandom as I used to be I can’t say that I’m sensing a lot of hype for Raya. Plus, c’mon Disney. You’re really going to make a CGI Dragon movie? That’s, like, Dreamworks’ one thing that they still do well and you’re going to try to take it from them? For shame.
“Stay on East Side!”
I mean, you don’t see Dreamworks trying to copy your movies. Ahem.
So it’s starting to feel like the Disney canon’s in trouble. Maybe that’s just me jumping the gun. Admittedly, not everyone feels the way I do about Wreck It Ralph 2. And maybe I’m just letting my impressions be coloured by the Disney company’s drift away from “movie company” to “Lexcorp-esque colossus of super-villainy”. Because I am all kinds of outraged about that. I mean, not enough to cancel my Disney + subscription or alter my spending habits in any way. But outraged enough to loudly proclaim how outraged I am on the internet? Oh yes. I am willing to be the hero this world needs.
But anyway Frozen 2. Usually before diving into a review I’ll give some background as to how the movie came about but how about we cut the shit? I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you how one morning Jennifer Lee shot bold upright in bed, struck with the inspiration for the next chapter of the Arrendelle saga that simply had to be told. We’re all grownups here (I hope, otherwise I really should lay of the cussin’). Frozen gifted the Disney company a fortune, and that fortune wanted a little brother or sister. A movie makes a certain amount of money, and a sequel is no longer optional. That’s why James Cameron is still threatening to smite the Earth with Avatar 2. And look, maybe it’s fine. Getting a bunch of talented people in a room and hoping the lightning strikes twice isn’t the craziest way to make a good movie. Maybe there is room for the story to go. Maybe Olaf’s character does need further exploration. Maybe the worst is behind us.
“No. No, we’re all doomed.”
“Dude, relax. It’s just a movie.”
The movie begins by helpfully reminding me that I loved the music from the first film and getting me in the mood with a bit of the old “Na na na HEY ya na” which still sounds a bit like a schoolboy’s taunt but works nonetheless. We begin with a flashback to Anna and Elsa’s childhood, specifically right before Elsa accidentally gave her little sister a near-terminal brain freeze. Much as I loved the original, one area where I felt it was maybe a little lacking compared to the rest of the Redemption Era movies was in the animation. Not bad, obviously. Self-evidentally very, very good. But missing that breathtaking quality of something like Moana or Tangled. In this area (and pretty much only this area), Frozen 2 is a step up. There are some absolutely stunning shots, probably helped by the fact the autumnal setting gives the animators more of a colour palette to work from. The character animation is also just flawless. I mean, I kinda feel that’s redundant of me to say after reviewing 58 of these frickin’ things. Yeah, I know. News just in: The most accomplished animation house in history that’s been leading the field in technical excellence more or less continuously since the nineteen thirties did not suddenly forget how to do this shit. But since I will be saying some not particularly gentlemanly things about this flick further down the line let’s put that out front. Visually, it’s the mutt’s nuts. Although I do get that same feeling I did from Zootopia that I find the characters so visually appealing because Disney have worked out an algorithim to brute force my brain with precision calculated cuteness and I have literally no choice in the matter.
“OBEY.”
Anyway, King Agnarr puts the kids to bed by telling them the story of an enchanted forest that was guarded by the spirits of Earth, Fire, Water and Smooth Jazz Air. The forest was home to the Northuldra, a tribe who gave off the distinct impression of painting with all the colours of the wind. Agnarr tells the girls that his father, King Runeard, built a dam for the Northuldra to “strengthen their water” and as a gesture of friendship (you wanna strengthen someone’s water, that’s what liquor’s for, just sayin’). Everything seemed to be going great, but then the Northuldrans suddenly attacked the Arrendellians and King Runeard was killed. The battle angered the spirits who basically broke up the fight like ancient elemental bouncers and then caused a great mist to descend on the forest, preventing anyone from entering. Agnarr was knocked unconscious and rescued by some mysterious person and returned to Arrendelle as its new king. Agnarr says that he wishes he knew who the person who rescued him was (he does, the lying bastich), and says that they have to be vigilant in case the forest spirits awaken again. Elsa asks her parents if they think the forest will re-awaken and Iduna says that “only Atahallan knows”, explaining that Atahallen is a mystical river that okay time out. Time out.
Frozen 2 represents a milestone in the Disney canon. This is the first of those movies where, after I’d seen it, someone asked me to describe the plot and I couldn’t do it. It was like I was describing a dream: “…um, Elsa and Anna go on a quest and there’s some…spirits? And a magic river? And Elsa thinks she’s meeting her girlfriend who’s the river but it turns out she’s being catfished by her mother’s ghost? And Anna almost destroys Arrendelle but Elsa saves it…there was a dam and some giants…”
“And Pascal from Tangled was there. I mean, he was purple and on fire but you could totally tell they just re-used the character model.”
This might be the plottiest of all the Disney canon movies, with a huge dollop of world-building and a mystery plot of all things. So there’s problem one. What are two kinds of movies that don’t typically benefit from elaborate, tricksy plots and tons of exposition? Children’s movies and musicals, a Venn diagram in which you will find Frozen 2 right at the point where the two circles are frenching.
Secondly…okay, so you want to switch genres and make Frozen’s sequel a Lord of the Rings-esque epic fantasy? Well, how can I put this politely, Disney? You need to up your game. The movie dumps a whole load of bland, cliché concepts on us and expects us to be invested enough to mentally compartmentalise this stuff. Fellowship of the Ring practically holds you down in its first fifteens minutes and reads you the sourcebook but it holds your interest because it makes you want to know about Sauron and Mordor and Isildur and Magic Rings and the Fish-Eating Cave Midgets Who Love Them. Frozen’s new fantasy status quo is overly complicated but it’s also unforgiveably bland. The Northuldra are dull, the elemental spirts are derivative and at least two could be cut without effecting the plot one whit. And there’s an unmistakeable stench of artificiality about the whole plot, of characters going somewhere or doing something for no better reason than that’s what the script needs them to do.
Well anyway, Iduna sings our first song All is Found, a sweet, simple little lullaby, and we time skip forward to after the first movie. Elsa is now queen of Arrendelle and handling it about as well as a freak banished to the attic for most of her life would. She’s also started hearing a strange voice singing to her which is always fun to know about your absolute monarch with superpowers. Meanwhile, Olaf is enjoying his new permafrost which Elsa gave him because the flurry he got at the end of the first movie was too much hassle to animate. So here’s a question for you. Where do you go with Olaf? What is left to explore with this character. Well, they decided to make him obsessed with death.
“Jean Paul Sartre postulated that every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” “Oh Olaf!”
Yeah, Gravity Falls has been my corona virus binging buddy. Actually, this is not a bad concept at all. Olaf is a snow man who has lived long past his typical life expectancy so the idea that he’s become fixated on the idea of impermanence and nothing lasting forever makes a lot of sense. It’s one of a myriad of little things in the movie that I like in isolation but doesn’t really tie together into any kind of greater whole. Anyway, Anna is just loving life at the moment. The gates are open, she’s got her boyfriend and her sister and her little possessed snow-puppet it’s all good. Anna just wants things to say the way they are, as she sings in Some Things Never Change in which all our main characters get a chance to reiterate that everything is just so gosh darn great and surely no nebulous threat lurks on the horizon to threaten their happiness? This is my least favourite song in the movie. Not technically bad, but really saccharine and bland, like a Eurovision entry trying to get as many votes by being as generic and inoffensive as possible.
Kristoff is planning on proposing to Anna after the gang’s nightly game of charades. The charades game shows off what I think is one of the movie’s greatest strengths; the character animation. The “acting” in this scene is just flawless. Everything about Elsa’s body language perfectly conveys something quite complex; Elsa is happy and surrounded by people that she loves and trusts but she’s still naturally shy and awkward in her own skin. That’s two seemingly contradictory things the animators have to convey but it’s done so, so well. Helping matter is that Idina Menzel is somehow even better in the part than she was last time. There are so many little acting moments that I just love; the soft, mumbled “thank you” she gives to Sven during the game of charades, the defensive little “which I don’t!” in Into the Unknown, she is phenomenal in this. You can tell she knows this character inside and out.
Elsa hears the strange voice again and she leaves the game abruptly, causing Anna to run after her and blow up Kristoff’s plan to propose to her after the game of charades. Sigh. Kristoff. Dude. See this?
That’s the Great Blasket island off the coast of County Kerry. I took the future Ms Mouse there, sang her a song I’d written for her as we sat on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and then asked her if she’d be my wife.
I’m not telling you this to brag. I’m telling you, you need to up your fucking game.
Okay, so because most of my criticisms will be on the script, how about we say something nice about the writing? While the plot’s a mess, many of the individual scenes are actually really nicely written. The scene where Anna follows Elsa to make sure she’s okay shows a good example of how short, seemingly everyday lines of dialogue can nonetheless clearly establish (or in this case, re-establish) character.
ANNA: Something’s wrong?
ELSA: (looking up, worried) With you?
Really simple, right? But with that one line of dialogue Elsa’s core character trait is established: she always puts other people first. Elsa convinces Anna that everything’s fine and they go to sleep. Elsa wakes up in the night and hears the mysterious voice calling to her again. This brings us to Into the Unknown.
Which, in my completely uncontroversial opinion, is even better than Let it Go.
“What is that ominous rumbling I hear in the distance?”
Simply put, it’s a banger. I love the build up, those strings darkly humming in the background, raising and raising the tension until we get that final, ecstatic moment of release.
If I had to pick one reason why I love Disney movies it’s moments like this. Ariel on the rock singing her soul out, Notre Dame cathedral towering gloriously over the Parisian clouds and here. Elsa calling out across the fjords to a mysterious voice, summoning her to adventure. I love this so much. I love the animation, I love Idina Menzel’s singing as well as her acting. I still contend that she’s the best performer of songs in the whole Disney canon. I mean, there may have been better singers, and almost certainly better actors, but no one who can act this well while they are singing. And I love the Panic in the Disco Version. This song, quite frankly, is tops with me. Unfortunately, some damfool put a movie after it.
“I hate when they do that.”
Suddenly, the town is attacked by freak weather and everyone is forced to evacuate. Elsa tells Anna that she accidentally awakened the elemental forces of the Enchanted Forest, an intuitive leap of deductive reasoning that would do Adam West proud. Pabbie and the trolls arrive and gives some obscure mumbo jumbo about the past not being what it seems and that unless they can appease the spirits there is no future for Arrendelle. Elsa says that she can feel that the voice that called her is good and resolves to go alone, and Anna resolves to go alone with her and Kristoff and Sven and Olaf and Reggie and Jughead and Hot Dog and the gang’s all here. They leave the trolls to rule over Arrendelle like a dodgy sub-reddit and head out to the Enchanted Forest which is surrounded by a wall of mist.
As beautiful as the imagery is, the wall makes the movie feel like a lazily designed video game, the kind of barrier they throw up to stop you wandering off the map. The mist parts at Elsa’s touch and they explore the Enchanted Forest. The find the dam still standing and Kristoff notes that it’s a good thing too, because if the dam broke everything on the fjord would be washed away, including Arrendelle.
Meanwhile, Olaf has wandered off to have his superflous comedy song that will advance the plot not one iota but what, we’re not going to give Josh Gad a song? When I Am Older isn’t terrible, but it definitely feels like a poor man’s In Summer.
It’s around this point that the movie just dumps a whole metric shit ton of STUFF on our heads and hopes we can sort it all out. The gang are attacked by the wind spirit and Elsa uses her ice powers against it which forms ice sculptures because fuck you, that’s why.
One of these ice sculptures is of a young boy (who they immediately recognise as their father) being saved by a young Northuldran woman (who they utterly fail to recognise as their mother). They then come across the Northuldra and the surviving Arrendelian soldiers and at first it seems like they’re still in a state of war but later we see the Arrendelians hanging out in the Northuldran camp like they’re all one big happy family so who even knows?
It’s not all bad. The scene where Olaf recounts the entire plot of the first movie is genuinely funny, and I do like Sterling K Brown as Mattias, the leader of the Arrendellians. He has a really nice scene where he asks Anna if the girlfriend he left behind in Arrendelle ever married and she says no and he smiles and then suddenly his face falls and he replies “Oh. Why don’t I feel better about that?”. Watching him go from “She waited for me!” to “Oh shit. She waited for me.” is lovely and again, another example of a single line of dialogue strongly establishing a character.
We also meet the fire spirit, which is just a repainted Pascal and the kind of extraneous Happy Meal bait I thought Disney had grown out of.
Oh my God. Disney, you whores.
Well, if everyone else is falling back into old bad habits why can’t I?
The Northuldra recognise Anna’s scarf, which belonged to her mother and the sisters realise that Iduna was the Northuldra girl that saved Agnarr. Why Agnarr never told the girls that when there was no reason to keep it a secret and it would also make for the kind of mind-blowing twist that just makes a bed time story, who can say?
Elsa resolves to head North to Atahallan with Olaf and Anna, and they just kinda forget about Kristoff and leave him behind. Ouch.
This leads to Lost in the Woods, a faux-cheesy eighties hair metal track where Jonathan Groff finally gets a proper song to himself (look, I love Reindeers are Better than People but it’s not exactly Do You Hear the People Sing).
So here’s the thing, Frozen was a musical. Frozen 2 is a movie with songs. In a good musical, every song ideally should end with the setting having been established (“Little town, it’s a quiet village”) or the plot having been advanced (“Is simply why I’ll, be king undisputed respected, saluted…”), or a character having made a pivotal decision that effects the direction of the story (“Watch and you’ll see! One day I’ll be! Part of your world!”). Now obviously, that’s a rule very few musicals observe totally. Under the Sea is a highlight of Little Mermaid but it doesn’t really perform any service to the story other than to distract Sebastien so that Ariel can slip away. But if the songs consistently serve as interruptions to the story rather than organic parts of it, then it’s not really a musical, any more than a house full of hyenas can be called a zoo. and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the songs that do actually advance the plot; Into the Unknown, Show Yourself and The Next Right Thing are the songs that seem to have been the best received.
So Elsa, Anna and Olaf find the ship that their parents were lost on. On dry land. Where it was apparently washed up. From the bottom of the ocean. Maybe it just magically became bouyant again. Wood is notoriously capricious. Anyway, they find the ship’s black box (I am not kidding) where they find where their parents were going, to Atahallan. To find the source of Elsa’s magic. Elsa uses her magic to see her parents last moments because Bambi was almost eighty years ago and there’s a new generation of kids that need traumatising.
Realising that the journey to Atahallan is dangerous, Elsa tries to protect Anna by pushing her and Olaf down a mountain in an ice sleigh so that they almost drown in a river and then nearly get crushed by rock monster (I said “tries”). Anna is understandably pissed and she and Olaf try to find their way through a dark cave.
Trying to cross the dark sea, Elsa encounters the Nøkk, a water horse that is actually a creature from Scandinavian folklore and not just a shallow excuse to give Princess Elsa a magical horsie sold seperately. She tames the Nøkk using her ice powers which by this point have been established to have more applications than the goddamned sonic screwdriver and rides to Atahallan. She sings Show Yourself, where Elsa finally comes to a joyous realisation about the truth of her lesbia…
“zzzzzz…hm, what?”
“Uhhhh…that she loves her mother so darn much.”
“Ah. Very good. Zzzzzzz.”
“Dumbass.”
So Elsa uses her magic to perform her greatest feat feat; actually explaining the damn plot and learns that, much like pretty much every historical figure born before 1970, her grandfather Rudeard was actually a bastard who built the dam to weaken the Northuldra, attacked their leader unprovoked and was almost certainly a rapist. I mean, they don’t say that, but balance of probability and all that. Learning the truth shocks Elsa to her core and freezes her heart, but she manages to get a message to Anna using, get this, her ice powers. Guys, I’m starting to think that what Elsa has is less “ice powers” and more “fucking omnipotence”.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Frozen movie without one moment of pure, pitch black hopelessness. I said in my review of the original that Do You Want to Build a Snowman is abut the death of hope, but Do The Next Right Thing is about soldiering on and doing what’s right even after all hope is lost. Anna’s just lost her sister, and with Elsa seemingly dead Olaf dies too, right before her eyes, bringing Anna to a state of total despair which the movie renders with a stunning, painterly beauty.
I love this song, not really for the melody but for the poignant, elegiac lyrics and Kirsten Bell’s heart-breaking performance. Anna decides that the only way to set things right is to destroy the dam, freeing the river and and destroying Arrendelle in the process as a way of atoning for the kingdom’s crimes against the Northuldra.
With Kristoff’s help she lures the giants to the dam and they destroy it, which sends a massive tidal wave hurtling towards Arrendelle. With the river freed, the elemental spirts thaw Elsa and she uses her ice powers to stop the tidal wave and save the kingdom.
Reunited, Elsa reveals that she is fifth elemental spirt so she’s going to stay in the Enchanted Forest now and cedes the throne to Anna, the woman who almost destroyed the kingdom so that’s going to make for an awkward coronation.
And of course Elsa is able to restore Olaf because she is basically icy Jesus at this point.
***
If Frozen was a sumptuous banquet, Frozen 2 is a box of chocolates. There’s lots of gorgeous little bits. An awesome song here, a sumptuous shot there, a fantastic little moment of character animation and a funny line whither and whence. But it’s not a cohesive whole and eating it all in one go is not a meal. It’ll just leave you feeling over-stuffed and a little queasy.
Scoring
Animation: 19/20
Bumps up from “Wow” to “WOW”.
Leads: 17/20
Much as I love Elsa and Anna, they lose a few points here from being trapped in an unsatisfying story.
Villain: 04/20
I went back and forth as to whether Rudeard even counts as a villain given that he’s been dead half a century by the time the movie starts. But then I thought “Mouse, do you want this movie to get a good score?” “No, Mouse” I replied. “No I do not.”
Supporting Characters: 05/20
Okay, movie? WHEN THE GODDAMNED WIND IS A CHARACTER YOU HAVE TOO MANY CHARACTERS.
Music: 16/20
Has the best song in either movie, but more uneven overall.
FINAL SCORE: 61%
NEXT UPDATE: 30 April 2020
NEXT TIME: What’s up, danger?
unshavedmouse 
I was planning on re-watching into the Spider-Verse soon.
“Have you heard about Raya and the Last Dragon?” I keep up heavily with animated movies, and going into the year have been pumped for “Red Son”, “Scoob”, and “Dark Apokalypse.” I have never heard of this, and I always know about these years in advance.
I recently watched “The Iron Giant” and All-Star Superman” back to back, and all I could think at the end of the second was “Grant Morrison, you whore.”
Really? Read the comic and don’t remember any glaring similarities
The endings with flying into the nuke/sun. The movie’s visuals are more similar to Iron Giant than the comic.
Considering how much Iron Giant borrows from Superman…
It is my favorite Superman movie after all.
I’ve gone back and forth on this one. Didn’t blow my mind like the first did, and they didn’t seem to know what to do with half of the cast but had to keep them around anyway because they’re popular.
But Into the Unknown, Show Yourself, and The Next Right Thing are all amazing (even if the latter is somewhat marred by the fact that thanks to The Good Place I now keep expecting Anna to say “Holy motherforking shirtballs!”). And the animation is mindblowing, and there’s lots of good character bits.
Frozen 3 is probably an inevitability (your understandable concerns aside, no way the Canon fully ends while Elsa commands billion dollar grosses), and I wonder if they didn’t shove in so much extraneous plot and worldbuilding to set up stuff for the future. Felt the same about Incredibles 2: by itself it’s only decent, but it seems tailor made to lead into further adventures. And maybe the more plotty nature is because the original fans have grown up a bit in the past 6 years, but a look at the merch suggests it’s still aimed at little kids.
Definitely blows Ralph Breaks the Internet out of the water as Disney sequels go, but that’s not saying very much.
Also, can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Spiderverse.
Oh,I think you know
Is it weird that the best sequel is still Rescuers Down Under?
Something tells me they should have made a TV show instead of a sequel if they wanted to make more money and wanted all this world building in. Cause I agree the individual aspects could have been interesting but they just shoved it into one mediocre movie. And Disney’s TV shows have been pretty great.
But I will say though the animation was gorgeous and there was a lot more character expressions then the first one. I also did love most of the songs. I agree Into The Unknown is better than Let It Go, but to be honest I might still be annoyed with Let It Go. Hopefully none of the songs play on the radio….
But other than that, this movie is just an “OK decent at most” movie for me. Definitely no Zootopia or Moana for me personally. Hopefully no more sequels. And I had no idea Raya is (or maybe now was) going to come out this year. That’s…. not looking good for Disney animation. They really are just focusing on Marvel and Star Wars and whatever they can get their little paws on next aren’t they?
His plot summary attempts did remind me of summaries of comic books that never end and require constantly checking Wikipedia.
Yeah, when I look at Tangled the Series it really feels like that would have been the better approach.
As disappointed as you were by the movie, I was equally as disappointed in the review.
I can only speak for myself but reading your reviews is one of the few means of escapism I have so it’s a real bummer that you continue to reference the Coronavirus as much as you have been. It may not seem like it but there absolutely is more to life than there may seem outside of the pandemic and it will only control you if you allow it to.
I think it’s important to remember that “Raya (which I totally agree with your take on it at this point)” was not added to the release schedule until last November at the earliest so I think it’s safe to assume that more titles will be added to the list before you know it.
One thing I’ve always loved about your reviews is how you avoid conspiracy theories (and in the cases where it’s unavoidable you address them very diplomatically) and I felt like in this way this review was a big misstep, specifically the “Elsa is a lesbian” theory (which I was glad was not addressed in the film and why I hope to heck there will not be a third film) and that Nokk and the fire lizard (whose name is Bruni, btw) were only in the movie for merchandising purposes.
Please don’t read this as being needlessly critical. These missteps were only obvious because you make so few of them.
He has stated character X is only in the movie for merchandise reasons multiple times (Pocahontas comes to mind). It is a common reason to make a character, but that does not mean they cannot be good characters. I think Olaf and Metal Beard were put in their movies for merchandise reasons, but they worked great.
Staying with the Pocahontas example: that was done because Disney didn’t have faith in the movie. The same rationale can’t be applied to Frozen 2, a well-publicized sequel to their biggest success in the new millennium.
No, they thought Pocahontas would win an oscar for best picture, and be their biggest hit ever. They did this while ironically thinking The Lion King would just make a small profit and hold children over until Pocahontas came out.
Correct; the events I was referring to occurred shortly prior to Pocahontas’ release. Lion King had been out for a year by that point.
I don’t think any of us will be able to pretend coronavirus doesn’t exist for the foreseeable future.
And I’m not suggesting we pretend that. I’m just saying it’s possible to have a conversation/discussion (or dare I say, even a movie review) without going out of one’s way to bring it up.
Okay see I thought I was crazy, but Into the Unknown is, like, on par with if not better than some of the first movie’s songs, and Next Right Thing and Show Yourself are right up there too. It’s nice to see someone else say it, and also articulate why those specific songs seem to work so well.
I kind of wanted to see this one go Thor Ragnarok at the end and it felt sort of narratively unsatisfying that it didn’t. Especially since they made a point of getting everyone in Arendele safely out of the city at the beginning. Maybe that would have been too dark. Still, I feel like the script was a couple of rewrites from being really good, but maybe that’s just film student hubris.
Finally, someone else who noticed the Thor: Ragnarok parallels! xD
I actually once found a video that touches upon that part of the ending and gave their own take on how it should have gone, if you’re interested:
Interesting, I just noticed your post. I will check it out.
This film was superior to the first in absolutely every way. It is now firmly my favorite non Japanese animated movie.
What annoys me most from the critics is that whole “not destroying Arendel was a cop out” thing. I’m someone who wanted Endgame to have the BALLS to not kill anyone. I’m a Christian. I love this movie for doing what Anime does all the time.
…I struggle to understand what anything about this second paragraph of yours even means.
It’s what I talk about on my blog a lot. Read “The Gospel According to The East” by Jared-MithrandirOlorin.
This movie was seriously underwhelming. While it was fun to be back in that world, the songs were all right, the animation gorgeous, they didn’t know what to do with these characters or the setting at all.
Then again, I don’t expect the Walt Disney animations studios to subscribe to me headcannon of The Southern Isles devolving into a succession crisis and Hans hoing full Molotov on evryone’s asses a la death of Stalin. 😛
So we’re due for a Zootopia sequel now, right? Judy and Nick enforce social distancing and mandatory quarantines?
Anything besides their live-action moneygrabs please….
Raya and the Last Dragon was pushed to next spring. Because they pushed Pixar’s “Soul” into it’s November release spot.
Your thoughts on the movie are pretty much what I expected, I still like this movie a lot cuz of all the individual moments and scenes that you yourself complimented, but as a whole together it doesn’t really work well. Interestingly one of my friends loves this movie, even preferring it to the original, which I understand but don’t quite get myself.
Still I feel this is one of the better Disney sequels considering how awful the competition is. I can at least look at this and say that it’s a good movie underneath all the complicated stuff. They really should have made a TV show instead. In the end the first film wins my heart.
I will say though, I do feel this movie made Elsa and Anna stronger characters in my eyes, especially Elsa, who I already loved a lot so I’m surprised they lost points for you. Also I’m surprised you didn’t say more about Show Yourself, that song and the animation in that scene was amazing.
Was Mouse tired and racing to finish on time? Naaaaaah never happen that’s crazy talk you’re crazy.
“Show Yourself” gives me the strongest emotional punch of the whole “Frozen” series.
Consequently, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why it didn’t get an Oscar push, and I hope whoever decided that felt embarrassed when “Into the Unknown” lost to another song about self-love.
The impression I get from this movie is that the writers fell in love with their own tidbits of ideas and couldn’t bear not to use them *all.* So the entire movie was built around genuinely lovely points of light but the connective tissue doesn’t make sense. They were trying to do too much with a single story:
* Explain the origin of Elsa’s powers (because the fans demanded it, because…reasons)
* Tell a story about colonialism and why you shouldn’t dick over the natives (and release it Thanksgiving weekend, which is admittedly ballsy)
* World-build the shit out of their fairytale setting (because the fans demand *that* sort of thing these days)
* Oh crap, we need a romantic subplot because Princess, but everyone is either happily partnered or happily single–I know! We’ll have the stable couple develop some instabilities and then resolve them! Yay us!
* Re-reference all the memeable gags and plot beats from the first movie.
The movie winds up feeling ironically both stuffed with stuff and devoid of actual content.
But yes, the good songs and the good moments are not just good but great.
My fiance and I both really didn’t care for Frozen II. Just didn’t find it engaging at all. Olaf really sucks hard in this one IMO, he already bugged me in the first one and they turned it up to 11 here. My favorite part was the fire elemental. It’s funny, you called him a Pascal ripoff but what he reminded me of was Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, just miniature. He was at least entertaining.
Into the Unknown is definitely good, I’ll admit that. The Panic at the Disco version sucks though.
Oh congratulations dude, when’s the big day?
I’m not going to lie, given a fireproof tank and a well-written owner’s manual, that little salamander would be the newest member of my family; I haven’t seen the movie and have no real intention of seeking it out, but one screenshot is enough for me to recognise an absolutely Adorable little alternative energy source! (-;
Must say that I’m really looking forward to your review of INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, as it’s always DELIGHTFUL to see you struggle with the challenge of reviewing a genuinely Excellent movie (shamelessly cheating you of spurs for the proper critic’s vitriol as such things do).
Anyway, Best Wishes to yourself and the rest of Clan Mouse; see you in two weeks! (In the meantime I’ll just while the days away with repeats of “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can!”).
Almost completely forgot to add – Her Majesty Queen Elsa is a demigoddess of Ice who lives within easy reach of the Arctic Circle; is it any surprise that she basically lives life in ‘God Mode’ as a result? (-;
Huh. Worse then I hoped, better then I feared.
Raya was unfortunately moved to March and Soul took its place due to the Covid situation 😦 But I don’t think us not knowing future films is indicative of anything. We don’t know anything with Pixar either for one. And Disney has always been thight lipped. Gigantic being cancelled if anything is the reason they are more so. They want to be sure they don’t be like Dreamworks full of announcements and cancelled projects.
I loved Frozen 2 but as long as you didn’t hate it I am fine! But I don’t know how there is too many characters? Just the original main cast, the parents and grandfather, one new animal sidekick and some people they meet that don’t have fleshed out characters and are more to get us symphatice with the groups. If anything the movie needed more characters.
Oh, there’s no doubt that Disney Animation certainly has stuff down the pipeline. Still, it feels weird how discreet they have chosen to be as of late when for the longest time, we the public had a decent idea of their next three projects ahead of time, even before they get an official title (I still remember scrolling through Wikipedia as a child and seeing Bolt’s then-working title of “American Dog,” or how test footage for Big Hero 6 was free to see on YouTube back in 2012, or even how Moana was set for a 2018 release and was going to be the next attempt to bring hand-drawn animation back).
Perhaps the studio is trying to run a tighter ship in the wake of Gigantic’s cancellation, or maybe a complete overhaul occurred in the wake of Lasseter’s departure, who’s to say. Though at least having an idea of what’s next to come would certainly be reassuring to folks like me, whose loyalty in the studio’s modern output is starting to feel unsteady after the one-two punch of this movie and Ralph Breaks the Internet.
I never really felt any of the Frozen hype. Much like other recent Disney animated films, I always thought that they were placing a lot of focus on spectacle to cover the thinness of the plot and Frozen II pretty much confirmed it. Looking at some of films from the Renaissance or immediately after you can see how character’s flaws not only move the plot along but their overcoming it helps conclude the story. Whether it’s Ariel’s naivety, Aladdin’s insecurities about self-worth or Stitch’s destructive impulses; but what about the character’s here?
As you put it, “I haven’t learned a thing!” And why should they? Any flaws are pretty thin and fixable so character development (if it can be called that) just sort of happens, kinda, rather than something the characters work for. So contrivance is used to move the story along rather than the characters.
But that’s just my opinion, looking forward to your next review Mouse.
It’s funny — I started out thinking “Frozen” was fine but not great and gradually warmed up to it (pun intended.) Whereas with “Frozen 2” I liked it from the start. It’s not a fantastic movie but the I enjoy the lovely bits enough that I don’t mind (very much anyway) the weak parts. (Except for Elsa being the fifth element. It would’ve made way more sense for Elsa to have become the water element and met up other elementals-in-human-form, make a TV series out of it like “Tangled,” that kind of thing. But then we wouldn’t have “Show Yourself” and I adore that song.)
Until now, I’d never heard of “Raya” and have only seen one little bit of promotion for “Souls.” I’m not sure what to make of that. All good things inevitably come to an end, and the Redemptive Era has had a good decade or so. I don’t think we’re going to suddenly start getting terrible movies from Disney but we’ll probably start seeing more Not Quites and Near Misses.
The plot of this one was a total mess. Also, I don’t normally sound like a republican or a guillotine salesman, but maybe nearly killing everyone twice in one year means that it’s time to get rid of this monarchy. Still, I was entertained for the run time and “Lost in the Woods” is my favorite song in either movie. Was crying with laughter in the theater.
I just want to add that this is a wonderful blog you have here. Top quality blogging. It started out very good and has only gotten better.
Aw, thanks man. That means a lot.
My husband said Frozen 2 makes total sense if you just accept that Elsa has had a complete psychotic break and then they made a movie about it.
I honestly could throw the entire movie away except for the 80s Power Reindeer Woods Ballad. And it made me beyond delighted that Weezer did a cover. So delighted that I forced my family to sit through the credits to listen to it. And then again the next day.
First comment, longtime lurker.
SPIDER-VERSE IS MY FAVOURITE MOVIE YES!
Good first comment. We shall watch your career with great interest
So the more deleted scenes and songs I see, the more sure I am that the version of this movie I wanted was three drafts ago. Also in every one of the behind the scenes featurettes both Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck have these “I am being held hostage” eyes and exhausted tones that put me in mind of Joss Whedon post-Avengers 2.
“Home” which was replaced by “Some Things Never Change” is an Anna solo that elegantly sets up a character arc that mostly ends up on the cutting room floor and actually, ya know, foreshadows her becoming Queen. The storyboards are also drop-dead gorgeous and make me pine for 2D animation so much.
While the actual song “Into The Unknown” is better, “I Seek The Truth,” the one it replaced had waaaay more character and plot relevance. Anna gets the absolutely killer lines “Another secret. And another and another. At least you were consistent. Hello Father. Hello Mother.” DAMN.
There’s also an older version of the prologue with the parents as kids getting saved by Matthias that makes way more sense.
Also, a deleted scene that offered closure for Anna RE her parents also shows that palace was originally going to be destroyed, and an artbook shows it would then have been rebuilt with Northundrala elements.
“Get This Right” is a deleted Kristoff and Anna duet during which he tries to propose that is so good (also featuring pretty storyboards) that I almost don’t hate Kristoff. And I fucking hate Kristoff.
RANT: I hate his knock off proto-Flynn Rider design and his condescension and the fact that you could write him out of both movies with nary a hiccup. There was an interview prior to Frozen 1’s release where someone in production described him as being designed and written to be a more “relatable” “real guy” to contrast with Hans’s princeliness and that pissed me off so much I’ve never forgiven the character.
I hate the ‘OMG the initial love interest who is good looking and like has a job and talks nicely to the female lead is SECRETLY evil and no the schlub who spent twenty minutes negging her is her real twu wuv’ trope. Like Sweet Home Alabama and freakin’ Enchanted were smart enough to get away from that cliche in the ‘aughts for goodness sake. Twilight Zone had an episode that subverted it in the 60s.
Also: Dear Disney, you can draw ‘relatable’ male love interests when you have a female ingenue that doesn’t look like a model and/or is above a US size 12. Until then, cough up the pretty. Sincerely, your male-attracted audience.
Okay I feel better. But yeah, three drafts ago Frozen 2 sounds amazing and I wish that was what we’d gotten.
Great review! Yeah, this film suffers plot-wise a lot! I do love ‘Into the Unknown’ way better than ‘Let It Go’ as well! I also have a soft spot for ‘Lost in the Woods’.
I feel this film needed a few more rewrites to be pretty amazing!
Or a few less
Thanks so much for this review. I know you are super busy and it means so much to your readers that you take the time to write these. Frozen 2 review was entertaining, hilarious, and the highlight of my day.
Ah, thanks so much. Really glad you enjoyed it.
To be honest, I don’t get the appeal of “Into the Unknown” (then again, I have very strange taste in music.)
I think my biggest problem is that I don’t understand Elsa’s struggle. On one hand, she has her happy ending, sister, country, everything she ever wanted. On the other, she has….the unknown. And why she wants it, why it seduces her, why she feels “she’s not where she suppose to be”? I never got the feeling that something is missing from her life. It’s too vague for me.
Anna and Elsa are THE WORST monarchs.
Call me nuts, but I think I prefer this movie over the first “Frozen” movie.
It is like I got more invested emotionally in this story…