RageLite review - Frozen 2

It’s just past Christmas, so time to cover the long-awaited sequel to the global phenomenon that became wildly over-hated, Frozen 2.

I get that in many circles it’s cool to hate Frozen but I could never bring myself to. It’s a very different twist on the classic Snow Queen story, fitting right on the Disney brand with memorable songs and gorgeous animation. And sure, some of Hans’ actions, particularly in the second go act completely contrary to his overall plan, but I do like they the twist on the classic Disney trope and that it conveys a message that love at first sight is not a healthy idea to obsess over.

Frozen 2 came out 6 years later but we weren’t starved for Frozen content in that time, just content that’s actually good. It’s somewhat encouraging that pretty much all of the major players from the last film are back for this one.

The film was another financial hit for Disney, earning nearly $1.5bn at the box office, and has had a good reception with both critics and audiences. So why then am I putting it in the mini review category as opposed to doing another guilty pleasures review? Is it laziness/busy-ness? Well partly, but let’s take a look?

Elsa has been hearing voices, who she thinks are calling her, in trying to work that out she accidentally wakes the magical spirits of some unnamed enchanted forest. The spirits are not best pleased with Arendelle, and it’s soon discovered some unknown wrongs need to be righted to calm them down. The gang head to the enchanted forest known as The Enchanted Forest, and must face the spirits and the connections between Elsa and said spirits.

This is a case where the whole may be the lesser than the sum of its parts. There are a lot of good elements in Frozen 2, but the story tethers that connect them and certain questionable choices lead to a product that feels underwhelming.

But I’ll start with the good. Olaf is brilliant in this film, the rare comic relief that can be occasionally annoying to the cast whilst never being annoying to the audience. Amidst his jokes and rambling are some bits of thematic importance. Water having memory serves for crucial plot developments in the film is they begin to gain a new insight into their history.

The theme of change is also important in this. The cast are growing older and have to face more morally complex and difficult problems. The idea that the history of Arendelle is not all built on truth and that violence occurred is interesting, and seems like a metaphor for colonialism.

And oh my god, the animation is gorgeous, the first film had spectacular animation but now they’ve upped the game with the water effects. The scene with Elsa fighting the waves is fantastic, I’d struggle to imagine how many hours of work went into that one scene. The fire spirit is really cute, I’m amazed it isn’t a huge toy-seller.

I also like that whilst the focus of the first one was more on Anna, this time the focus is more on Elsa, not that Anna isn’t involved, because she very much is but the core of this film is Elsa discovering what she really and what her place in the world is. It’s not heavy on the character development but I appreciate some more insight into her.

I also think the moral of doing the next right thing when all seems unknown is a good lesson to teach to children, this film has quite a few good morals.

But what I can say is there are some problems. Anna’s relationship with Else is a core to the Frozen brand, and what I’m about to say may be controversial but in my opinion, there were times where it seemed incestuous (I think they're trying for co-dependant after years of isolation, but I think they went too far). I’m talking about where Anna plays with Elsa’s hair and sings her to sleep, where they stare longingly at each other. 

Anna’s role in this is to try and stop Elsa going too far, but she doesn’t really know what too far is and ends up plunging herself into danger, and berating Elsa for doing the same. Elsa meanwhile is trying to keep her from danger by keeping information from her, which we all know worked against her in the past. I empathise with Elsa, regardless. Anna doesn’t seem to accept that Elsa can maybe protect herself.

But Kristoff is just wasted in this film. They don’t want him in the main narrative so they shuffle him off with a proposal plot ripped from a sitcom. I get that the main story is kinda serious, even with Olaf in it, so a comedic subplot makes some degree of sense but he feels very disconnected from the main narrative to the point you could pretty much cut him out of the film entirely. Worse still it feels out of place, for most of the film it’s not a good time to propose and Kristoff seems unaware of Anna’s feelings for most of it. I will say ‘Lost in the Woods’ is actually one of the better songs.

The film is also a little slower than the first film, it takes a good 25 minutes for the plot to start moving, this film is 107minutes including credits. The downside of that is they kinda rush through the enchanted spirits section of the plot. Gale has no reason to be in the film, the rock spirits are just dumb brutes and the fire spirit is just adorable, and the water spirit is Elsa’s new horse.

A few other niggles, the songs are OK-good but none are as memorable as Let it Go, it seems weird that the bridge between spirit and human (Elsa) would have ice powers of all things, the tribes that live in the forest don’t have much development or personality and then there’s the ending. Apparently, the original ending was to destroy Arendelle in have it rebuilt as a union between everyone, adding in a ‘Arendelle isn’t a village but it’s people message’ that has become fairly popular in media like this. (Thor Ragnarok and Dragons 3 come to mind) and I think, given the circumstance, this would have been the better ending as opposed to what they actually and have Elsa just save everything.

One last thing, were all the Frozen call-backs necessary? I hear children test-screened were confused without it but there are a lot of them.

Frozen 2 is a conundrum to me, there are plenty of individual elements I quite like but a considerable amount of mostly minor problems bog it down. It tries to be more complex than its predecessor, but doesn’t commit to some of its own themes leaving the end result neither exhilarating nor thought inducing.

Rating 65/100