Frozen II Continues Elsa and Anna’s Icy Legacy

With the wild success of Disney’s Frozen, a sequel was inevitable. The 2013 film was, until the “live-action” remake of The Lion King surprisingly knocked it out of the spot, the highest-grossing animated film—and musical—of all time. Six years, one story about a reluctant queen with the power of ice magic and true love in the bond of sisters, and an Academy Award–winning ballad later, the hype for all things Anna and Elsa even has yet to let it go.

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Frozen II focuses on Elsa’s feeling of “otherness,” which lingers despite the fulfillment provided by kin and kingdom. That feeling is manifested in a mysterious singing call from the unknown that only Elsa seems to hear, somehow enmeshed with a folktale lullaby the girls’ mother sang to them when they were children. Elsa’s curiosity leads the rest of the beloved cast—spitfire Anna, comic-relief snowman Olaf, good-guy Kristoff, and reindeer Sven—on an adventure that involves the search for truth about themselves, their relationships, and the past.

Any film providing more screen time for the Frozen cast would have been successful. Disney didn’t need to do much to check all the boxes, evidenced by the mountains of merchandise that hit stores long before the movie released—parents of smaller kids, raise your hand if you’ve had to avoid Target stores since October to avoid inevitable meltdowns courtesy of the giant Frozen II merch display immediately beyond the entrance. And unfortunately, the movie seems formulaic to a fault, down to the very identifiable introduction of “the next ‘Let It Go.'” One of the themes presented as being central to the story, being forefront enough to merit several dedicated songs, meanders and ultimately goes nowhere. Putting the themes with the context of the actual plot felt disjointed, maybe even dismissive.

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Where the movie excels, however, is no surprise: it is a visual feat, a stunningly animated film with some truly dazzling effects. Water, more important in its basal state in the sequel than it was in its frozen predecessor, is breathtaking no matter what form it shows up in, as wild waves or floating droplets. Fire makes a great display of top-notch lighting effects. And obviously there is plenty of ice and snow.

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The thing about being formulaic is it works. Frozen II provides exactly what most audiences are showing up for—more Elsa, more Anna, mysterious magic, catchy tunes, and a carefully calibrated amount of butt jokes. There are some genuinely fun moments in the film, a rock-ballad parody being one of them, but in the end the whole thing feels pretty soulless. To be clear, although the “soulless” criticism of newer Disney films is often dismissed as hand waving by old timers clinging to the golden age of hand-animated Disney and bemoaning the use of CGI technology over human touch, that is not the source of my criticism: 2016’s Moana was, in my opinion, one of the most soulful Disney films to date. It is people who still craft the animation, who write the stories and the songs, voice the characters, bring it all to life.

Elsa fans will be delighted by this movie, no doubt. It does what it set out to do in providing more of the same. Just don’t expect it to thaw the hearts of those with higher expectations.

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