Alright; context.
For those not familiar: six years ago when the first Frozen film was released, I wrote a scathing review on it. Well, I say “scathing,” but I was sixteen going on seventeen and had quite a bias against Disney animated motion pictures. They were for kids and I was above that. It was more in line with what you’d read in The Onion, according to those who had read this review at the time.
Anyway, the review is long gone along with the hard drive that housed it. I’m glad. I am twenty-three years old now and have seen much, MUCH worse than Frozen. You could say that I let it go. When I look back at Frozen, there was probably nothing seriously wrong with the film other than the songs in it were made for radio more than anything the film was trying to say, and it was trying to say something.
But every time I hear “Let It Go,” I cringe. I understand what Elsa is saying: Her having to live with hiding in a room holding her powers back because the moment she leaves she’s a danger to everyone around her and in turn is afraid of what people might think of her, and the moment her powers are revealed she runs away and secludes herself and lets it all go. No one likes the cold in Arendelle, but the cold never bothered Elsa, so why should she care what anyone says, and I mean anyone? It isn’t until Elsa sees Anna use her last move to protect her does she realizes that there is at least someone on the face of the earth that loves her for the person she is despite having the power to manipulate the most miserable of the four seasons.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Disney took full advantage of the song and blasted it in peoples’ ears so much and so often that even people who objectively thought the movie was alright at worst were turned completely against it. I hate that song even if it’s relatable to a degree. You play that damn song one more time, and I am GOING TO LOSE IT. Frozen was an okay-to-solid princess movie ruined by the most shameless corporate masturbation I’ve ever seen. “Let It Go” and songs like it are their fetish.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. So, it’s been six years since that debacle and the sequel has finally come out. Since I wrote about the first one, it’s only appropriate that I write this.
INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!
Frozen II is a 2019 animated film, and was directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck and the original cast is back for the second go-round. In this sequel, Arendelle is in danger yet again; this time by a mysterious power, and it’s up to Elsa, Anna, Kristoph, Sven, and Olaf, to save Arendelle once again.
I’ll be honest: I was rooting against this film. Frozen was a financial diamond in the rough; a bolt of money lightning in a bottle. Lightning does not strike the same place twice. I wanted this film to show me that Disney – with all its power and might – could not produce that same magic for them in a princess movie. Well, I guess I was kind of wrong because to me, this film was…alright. It wasn’t the disaster I was hoping it would be, and it’s better than the first movie, in my opinion. And it grossed over a billion dollars at the box office, so there’s that.
Let’s talk positives: this is a great looking movie. It may very well be the best and most cinematic-looking princess film of the modern era. It seemed to me that there was more effort put in to the visuals this time than the first film, whereas Frozen didn’t really grab me visually. I like the framing of each shot and the use of scale in the wide shots. The animation is stellar as usual for a Disney animated feature. No doubt this will be nominated for an Oscar.
The songs are easier on the ears and stand out more than the first movie. Frozen only had one song and I will fight anyone who dare claims there were more, whereas Frozen II felt much more from the heart in its song and dance even in the comedic tunes (except for one song). It seems like the team took into consideration that whatever songs they make, Disney is going to make them heard in the furthest universe from here. So they made them nicer and better to listen to. Trust me, I checked my ear canals after the film was over to see if they were bleeding, and they were not.
The characters, for the most part, are portrayed better. The chemistry between everyone is top notch. Elsa and Anna’s sisterhood is well-executed and delivered with punch. Kristoph didn’t make it easy at times, but he got there eventually. Olaf was not as annoying to me as people seem to have made of him, but I can see where everyone is coming from. I’ll go into characters more in the spoiler section, so I’ll just say for now that the cast is very good at their job and the characters are A LOT BETTER.
Okay, now the negatives; or just one huge negative, really: the story. I won’t go into spoilers, but there are points in this film where I thought they should have pulled the trigger on the original idea of Elsa being the villain. There are far more interesting ideas proposed in the narrative, and they are ultimately dumped for the simplest solution. It was initially perplexing and on top of that, the film almost felt like there was no theme or message present especially when the film was said and done. But then I remembered I’m a twenty-three-year-old male with deep thoughts and specific tastes, and it was clear that this film is not aimed for me, and that’s fine.
Despite the song “Into The Unknown,” this film doesn’t do that and never was. It’s a princess film, not Zootopia. The objective with Frozen II was to give the younger kids something to entertain themselves with and please them with love and humor. Disney will save the cleverly executed and complex themes for Pixar or Clements and Musker. It’s a princess movie; it doesn’t need to be so complicated, but sometimes I do wish that Disney wouldn’t take kids’ intelligence for granted so much in this genre.
In the end, Frozen II was – once again – a princess movie. The songs are good, the cast is great, the animation is second-to-none, but the story is weaker than the original Frozen. I wish it would’ve made bolder choices, but it’s for the kids. It’s better we not really spoil them to the harsh reality of life just yet.
Rating: B-
Okay, I’m going into spoilers. If you’re still interested in the movie…
TURN.
BACK.
NOW.
The Plot
Okay, so the last review was a childish dissection of the first movie where it probably wasn’t warranted. I won’t try to replicate what I did with it because I’m much older and more “mature,” but I’m about to plunge into this movie, because honestly, I have a lot to say. I also had two stunning epiphanies while writing this review, so strap in.
So, there are four spirits of nature: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. And before you ask, no this is not in The Last Airbender universe. In a flashback scene, Anna and Elsa’s parents tell them the story of Northuldra and the magical forest it occupies. The then King of Arendelle made a peace treaty with the Northuldrans and built a dam to strengthen their waters, then they’re all partying, then they’re all fighting. The then King of Arendelle dies, and the forest is sealed away by a large mist. Their mom sings the riddle of the entire movie:
Where the north wind meets the sea
There’s a river full of memory
Sleep, my darling, safe and sound
For in this river all is found
In her waters, deep and true
Lie the answers and a path for you
Dive down deep into her sound
But not too far, or you’ll be drowned
Yes, she will sing to those who hear
And in her song all magic flows
But can you brave what you most fear
Can you face what the river knows
Where the north wind meets the sea
There’s a mother full of memory
Come, my darling, homeward bound
When all is lost, then all is found
I honestly forgot what the referenced river was.
After Elsa answers a melodic voice calling to her with song and dance, God strikes Arendelle for their iniquities against the older generation beyond the fourth wall. Okay, not really; water stops flowing, hurricane-force winds, fires go out, and the earth becomes a back massage machine (the streets were literally rolling).
So, the gang’s got to go figure this all out. They travel to a magical forest hidden by a giant mist, and the movie finally begins. To sum it all up, the Arendellians left behind during the battle previously mentioned are at odds with the local Northuldrans, Elsa is trying to do everything herself, Anna isn’t letting her, Kristoph is trying to propose to Anna in the middle of all this, and Olaf thinks adulthood solves everything.
After a struggle with the fire spirit (an adorable little lizard) and a revelation via an ice statue because water has memories in this world that their mother was a Northuldran and she was the one who saved their dad in the battle thirty years prior, the opposing sides come together for a kumbaya. Anna, Elsa, and Olaf ditch Kristoph and Sven as they set up a dramatic proposal attempt and follow the voice. They find the shipwreck of their parents, and it contains a map to the possible source of Elsa’s magic; the missing link between the four spirits. It’s just across the Dark Sea, which might as well be no man’s land (good thing their two women and a snow…creature).
Elsa, saddened once again by the death of their parents, pushes away Anna and Olaf in an ice raft downhill and river past some earth giants and they then get trapped in a cave. Elsa attempts to cross the Dark Sea without out a boat. She encounters the water spirit – a horse made of water, tames it and crosses the Dark Sea to…a land that is unpronounceable by name. There, she discovers that she is the missing link between the spirits. Go figure.
Not only that, but she also finds out that her grandfather orchestrated the attack on the Northuldrans out of fear for their ability to utilize the magic of the forest. The dam was built to choke them out and block the magic; thus, the mist. If the dam were to be destroyed, however, the ensuing flood would destroy Arendelle. But Elsa went too deep for this information (see song above, second stanza), and she FROZE TO DEATH. But not before she shot a zip file contain an ice statue of her grandfather’s deed to Anna. As a result of Elsa’s apparent death, Olaf fades away as if Thanos snapped him out of existence (no, this does not take place in the MCU either).
Left alone in the cave and mourning the loss of Elsa and Olaf, Anna finds the will to push on. She attracts the attention of the earth giants (they’re the earth spirits, by the way), and brings them to the dam with the eventual help of Kristoph and Sven, along with the Arendellians soldiers. The earth giants destroy the dam and lift the mist from Northuldra and before Arendelle is destroyed, Elsa thaws out, races back to Arendelle, and stops the flood from destroying the town. Elsa and Anna reunite, Olaf is resurrected from the dead, Kristoph proposes to Anna and she accepts (this sentence happens all within three minutes, by the way), and Anna becomes queen of Arendelle as Elsa remains in Northuldra.
Roll credits.
The Characters
Let’s start with Kristoph. Throughout the film, he tries and FAILS to propose to Anna, and that is all he ever does, so there’s not a lot to say in his regard. This was hard to watch. I have never seen anyone horrifically bomb at doing anything ever. He chose the wrong times, the wrong words, the wrong ways; this was either conceived brilliantly or poorly. I really can’t tell. It was until he started singing “Lost in The Woods” that I really lost it because I started taking his struggle seriously. I saw his turmoil in wanted to marry Anna but not knowing where it leads, and his true madness as he talks to reindeer and thinks they’re singing with him.
When he finally does pop the question, it comes right at the perfect time in the most perfect way, and while it did feel just a little satisfying for the sake of it, the timing was too perfect, and I wasn’t surprised. He is the “Prince Charming” chasing the girl and it’s clear. The arc is executed in a way that if this was any other story, he’s the girl singing about how he wants to be with the man. That’s absolutely fine, but my God, man; he is so dumb that it’s almost unwatchable. It’s probably just me and my sensitivity to cringe because people were laughing in my theatre. To each their own, I guess.
Now let’s go to Olaf. Olaf has permafrost so he can’t melt (didn’t save him). His deal is that he’s growing in sentience, and he believes that everything makes sense when one is an adult (which apparently he isn’t). Throughout the movie, Olaf is spouting a bunch of weird trivia that he’s learned since the first film, and one of these is water contains memories and that your average puddle has passed through at least four living things before it got there. Then he glides through the rest of the movie, dies, and is resurrected. Joy.
Olaf was okay. People were mad – myself included – when that twenty-minute short played in front of Coco (a much better movie). Olaf can die and burn in hell for that. In this movie, he’s fine. There is a funny bit where he dramatically and comedically recaps the first movie. But beyond that, he was as previously stated: not as annoying as he was built to be.
I was expecting to rip my scalp off upon first sighting of Olaf from my reaction to the twenty-minute short and what I heard out of reviews of the movie. They weren’t exactly positive; at least the ones I read and watched. But in my opinion, at worst his role is painfully obvious in that he is specifically and thoroughly designed to appeal to kids and it apparently works. And at best, he’s got the best laughs in movie by being a tool that makes this movie meta. Like, seriously; Olaf reenacting the plot of the first movie is handled as well as that first film deserves.
On that note; I do also love how the movie treats its predecessor. Frozen II treats Frozen like its awkward and uncool mom. On top of how Olaf makes the first film sound ridiculously typical, Elsa actively cringes at “Let It Go” when it’s played briefly as she’s going through some memories after the reveal of her being the missing link between spirits. Elsa and I agree that that could’ve been handled better and in a less cringey way, and I was pleasantly surprised by that.
Speaking of Elsa; she is the most powerful princess of all princesses. I dare say that she is a “Mary Sue,” but I’m okay with that because there are more male “Mary Sues” than female and the term is just one big slop of irony whenever it’s brought up outside this context (i.e. Star Wars).
Her situation is as follows: She wants to carry the load herself because she’s the only one capable of doing anything in her mind because ice powers, and Anna is holding her back from doing any of that because Anna won’t leave her side, Elsa doesn’t want Anna to get hurt again, or anyone else for that matter. So when it’s discovered that their parents were crossing the Dark Sea to find the source of Elsa’s power, she feels personally responsible for their deaths, and pushes away Anna and Olaf to find the truth on her own accord.
Once she does discover that she’s the missing link between spirits, she goes deeper into the island to find out that her grandfather who built the dam for the Northuldrans was afraid of the magic of the forest and how they used it. She goes deeper: her grandfather built the dam to choke the land and create the mist that separate the forest from the outside world. She goes deeper still: her grandfather cut down the then leader of the Northuldrans in cold blood and initiated the battle her father described at the beginning of the film.
But, against her mother’s warning song back at the start, Elsa went too deep, and in a moment of complete karma and irony, she froze to death after sending an ice statue of her grandfather’s deed to Anna. After Anna sees to the dam being destroyed, Elsa thaws out, rides the water horse back to Arendelle and stops the flood from destroying the town. She then takes up residence in Northuldra where she belongs with the rest of the freaks.
Wow, that was a lot more than I thought it would be, but I’m glad I wrote all that.
EPIPHANY NUMBER ONE: I understand Elsa
After writing all that out and actually paying attention to “Let It Go,” I relate to Elsa more than I’m comfortable with. I think in a weird twisted way, she’s so real to me that it hurts. The way she pushes people away because there’s something about her that she’s afraid she’ll be rejected for it and the rift it creates between her and said people, so she shoulders that burden on her own in search of her place in all this; good Lord, I just had a real moment with Elsa.
I was about to harp on her decision-making throughout this film of constantly wanting to do things herself and pushing Anna away again until I had just realized that it isn’t a flaw on the movie’s part; it’s intentional. Elsa is her own worst enemy. She decided to tackle her issues by herself with no support or direction and, after discovering how special she really is, payed the price for it right up until Anna freed her by destroying the dam. For as long as she lives, Elsa will never fully understand just how special and loved she truly is. With a character this powerful and perfect, her flaws have to come from within, and the filmmakers nailed that aspect.
Wow, what an epiphany. So, I guess the only real negative thing I have is the practical decision-making with Elsa’s character. Did she really have to go to the point of no return to put the pieces together with her grandfather? Also, she took Anna for granted because she doesn’t have powers of her own, but that just supports the “her own worst enemy” thread. Yeah, that’s it; I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW. SEND. HELP.
Let’s move on to Anna. Anna is – to me – the best character in the movie. In Frozen, she goes on a quest to find Elsa as her heart slowly turns to ice, and is also in search of a soulmate. She seemed more like the damsel in distress than her own character. On the flip side, Frozen II puts effort into her. She sees that Elsa is on a path of inevitable self-destruction, and does not want to leave her side, or else she gets hurt or worse. Anna has a talk with the lead Arendellian left behind from the battle thirty years prior, and learns when the going gets tough, do the next right thing (even though she probably already knew that).
Almost immediately after this, Kristoph, the man she loves, disappears and she has to go on without him. Later, Elsa pushes her away because Elsa is afraid to lose her because she’s not as strong as Elsa. Anna and Olaf row the iceboat gently down the stream past the earth giants and end in a not-so-merry cave. Elsa dies, and takes Olaf with her, stripping Anna of all her support.
Now it’s just her. Life has gone wrong, and now all she can do is the next right thing: destroy the dam and free Northuldra at the expense of losing Arendelle. She sings her way out of the cave, gets the attention of the earth giants and with the help of Kristoph, Sven, and the left behind Arendellians, she gets the earth giants to destroy the dam (which raises the question of why the earth giants didn’t just do it themselves, but whatever).
It’s over. Arendelle is presumed to be destroyed by the flood, Elsa and Olaf are gone, and this will no doubt drive a wedge in her relationship with Kristoph. Will she ever be the same woman again?
And then the actual ending happens, blah blah blah. Anna has no superpowers. She’s as mortal as anyone in a twenty-first century princess movie can be. Her boyfriend is gone, her sister is gone, her best friend is gone, she’s stuck in a dark cave, and now she has a choice: destroy the dam and free Northuldra at the cost of her lifelong home or give up because she has no powers and she is not her sister. Elsa’s the queen, not Anna.
Anna is NOT portrayed anywhere near this strong in the first movie. She leaves Arendelle without a leader to go search for Elsa as she is slowly dying of the worst case of frostbite since Jack Nicholson, her boyfriend Hans betrays her and attempts to kill Elsa to seize the throne and uses her dying move to block the decisive blow. It feels like to me that that’s all she’s there for.
In this film, she is given an arc and a reason to be. She won’t leave Elsa’s side for two reasons: Elsa spent most of her life in isolation because she almost killed Anna with her powers and Anna wants to make up for that lost time, and Elsa’s responsibilities as queen of Arendelle and being a very powerful being in general and Anna wants to lighten her burden in any way she can. “If you don’t want me running into fires, don’t run into fires.” Seems simple enough.
Anna’s arc starts quite late. It really begins when she talks to the leader of the Arendellians trapped in Northuldra and he tells her that when life get rough, to make the next right choice. It’s immediately after this that the going gets rough for Anna. Boyfriend disappears, sister and best friend die, trapped in a cave, and she has to destroy her lifelong home in order to correct a massive sin from the past. That’s a lot, and she handled it better than I expected.
It’s time for one last point. Because of how the third act goes down, there was an idea they were dancing around. One ending that they had on their hands was that the dam gets destroyed, Arendelle is destroyed by the flood, the people relocate to Northuldra, Anna reluctantly becomes queen in Elsa’s stead, and Kristoph never gets the chance to propose until the next movie. It’s a bold ending for its audience and raises the stakes going into a potential third movie, whereas the actual ending is inconsequential, and the characters don’t really pay for their mistakes and choices. And you know what? I’m okay with it.
EPIPHANY NUMBER TWO: Not all movies are aimed at me.
This alternative ending is more in line with a more generally mature franchise like Star Wars or Marvel. I don’t think even Pixar is capable of an ending like that no matter the context or movie. You won’t see a Thanos snap twist in a Disney princess movie. And honestly, I understand it. It’s a princess movie aimed at kids ten and under. It’s true that us adults would mostly appreciate and admire such an ending, but I don’t think that the target audience here is ready for something that dark and grown-up just yet.
The Thanos snap is different in that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not exactly for kids, but kudos to the children who managed to swallow that pill. Even The Empire Strikes Back or The Last Jedi or even Rogue One are different in that although Star Wars as a whole was aimed at coming-of-age teens, it doesn’t shy away from their darker ideas because George Lucas thought that kids need to grow up at some point.
This movie or genre of movies doesn’t necessarily exist to help kids grow up or cope with growing up. Their purpose is more to teach them core values every human should live by or at the very least provide an avenue to indulge their imagination with, not to teach about consequences. And there is nothing – absolutely NOTHING – wrong with that.
In conclusion
I feel really bad about that first review six years ago. I didn’t really realize that I connect with Anna and Elsa so well. But also I realized that movies like Frozen II are not aimed for my demographic and expectations need to be managed a little better. That being said, as a twenty-three-year-old man, this movie was an alright movie that kids or those who are younger at heart should get more of a kick out of. My yearning for more bolder storytelling may not have been satisfied here, but what was I expecting?
Wow, eight pages in Word for Frozen II. I was not expecting that. Well, thanks for bearing with me on this adventure. The sequel’s got to be longer and more meaty, right? Anyway, I had fun writing this and I’m glad you took the time out of your day to read it. Thank you. Later!
Maestro Movie Reviews & Essays 