Six years after the original film, Frozen II has finally arrived in theaters.
But do the new songs work as well as the old ones?
Are the new characters worth falling in love with?
Does Olaf still love warm hugs?
Here's a spoiler-filled look at the five best and five worst things in Frozen II.
Frozen launched into the stratosphere as one of the biggest family films ever in 2013 for
a number of reasons, but one of the most important was its centerpiece song, "Let It Go," which
any parent can no doubt recite from bitter memory.
But while there are certainly attempts in Frozen 2 to recapture some of that "Let It
Go" magic, even the planned showstopper "Into the Unknown" doesn't quite reach those heights.
It was a tall order, to be sure, but the film can't quite rise to it.
Still, if you don't compare the songs to "Let it Go," there are joys to be found, especially
in Kristoff's goofy power ballad "Lost in the Woods," which gives Broadway star-turned-Disney
darling Jonathan Groff a chance to do his best REO Speedwagon impression.
Add in a chorus of reindeer backup singers, and it's the most pleasant surprise in the
film.
The Frozen films might be for kids of all ages, but they're also inventive fantasy adventures
that employ their own rich sense of mythology, magic, and worldbuilding.
It's a lot of backstory for kids to understand, so how does Frozen 2 address this?
Have Olaf stop everything to give the new characters what's essentially a recap of the
first film.
There's nothing here that Michael Peña didn't do much better in the Ant-Man films over in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Unlike those movies, though, in Frozen 2 it just stops the story dead in its tracks for
a exposition-heavy nostalgia slog.
There had to be a better way to do this.
The first Frozen featured some beautiful animation.
So how could Frozen 2 hope to top it?
Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee made the somewhat gutsy decision to get the lead
characters out of the familiar confines of Arendelle and winter, bringing them to a magic
forest stuck in perpetual autumn.
That unlocks a new visual creativeness.
From Elsa's battle against the ocean itself to her fight against the fire salamander,
Frozen 2 is absolutely stunning to look at throughout.
It's been six years since Frozen hit theaters, but as the characters helpfully tell us in
the sequel, only three years have passed in the realm of Arendelle since the last time
we saw Anna, Elsa, Olaf, and Kristoff.
And absolutely nothing whatsoever seems to have happened in that time.
Everyone's basically in the exact same place they were when the last film left them — and
considering how complex much of Frozen's storytelling is, that feels like a misstep.
The static nature of the characters at the start of the movie feels particularly jarring
considering Frozen 2 is actually about growing up and becoming different people.
Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and even Olaf all wrestle with the reality of growing up — and possibly
growing apart.
That's just one of the mature themes Frozen 2 touches on.
The sequel explores the nature of legacy, the sins of the past, and the ways in which
we can redeem each other through deliberate attempts to heal old divisions.
The plot doesn't always work, and younger viewers might not understand the themes, but
Frozen 2 doesn't lack ambition.
It's trying to say something, and that's… saying something.
Disney has a long history of introducing memorable new characters in sequels to keep things fresh.
Toy Story, for instance, has Jessie, Bullseye, and Forky just to name a few.
But while Frozen 2 introduces some new characters, none of them seem particularly interesting,
or important to the story.
Even the film itself doesn't seem very interested in the characters, introducing them only to
pretty much write them out in the next scene.
If you can remember the names of any of the Arendelle soldiers or the Northuldra
people by the end of the film, it will be a miracle.
A big reason Frozen worked, particularly with adults, was the chemistry of the cast.
And thankfully, six years of waiting did nothing to diminish the voice cast's tremendous rapport
with one another on-screen.
Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and Jonathan Groff can all still
fire jokes off each other with incredible precision, whether they're diving into Anna
and Kristoff's awkwardness or Olaf's curiosity.
Even beyond that, though, there's a certain emotional honesty at play in their performances,
particularly between Bell and Menzel, that makes everything land.
It's nice to see that the magic of the cast didn't fade at all in the intervening years.
Olaf's recaps aren't the only bit of clumsy exposition in the movie.
Frozen 2 seems so intent on getting started that they kinda botch the setup.
After a short flashback with Anna and Elsa's parents telling a bedtime story
that serves as a massive plot dump, we segue right into Elsa hearing voices,
magically activating all the elements, and nearly blowing up the city in a rushed sequence
that feels fairly incoherent.
By the end of the film, the beginning finally makes sense — which is great for an experimental
film like Memento, but not so great for a kid's movie.
At one point in the film, Olaf rather off-handedly remarks that "water has memory."
That turns out to be an important line, though, as it sets up a key part of the Frozen 2 mythos.
It turns out that water does have memory, which means ice can hold memory, allowing
Elsa to become a kind of memory summoner and keeper.
This all culminates in one of the film's most visually gorgeous sequences in the ice cave,
as Elsa learns the whole truth about Arendelle's dark past.
It's a great example of something that starts off simple being expounded on in a really
compelling way.
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