Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2019
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When ‘Frozen II’ was announced, Disney emphasised that they had retained the core creative team from the first film. While churning out a mediocre cash grab would likely have put Disney’s freshly hatched golden goose on ice, the consistent story coming out of the ‘Frozen’ camp was that they would not have signed onto the sequel without a compelling reason to do so, without a story to tell that justified their return. Ironically, the one thing that doesn’t completely work this time around is the story that they settled on, which knots itself into overly complex shapes throughout the first act, trying with such unnecessary desperation to craft an exciting raison d’être that it almost loses its grip. Once its story moves past these early wobbles, though, ‘Frozen II’ easily lives up to the high bar set by its record-breaking, Oscar-winning predecessor, with a winning cast, solid jokes, stunningly realised animation and – most importantly – some catchy new earworms for Elsa fans to belt out until the inevitable ‘Frozen III’ skates along.
Jennifer Lee’s screenplay opens with the heroes from ‘Frozen’ comfortably settled into the roles in which we left them. Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) is performing her royal duties. Elsa’s sister Ana (Kristen Bell) and her beau Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) are enjoying a slow but steady courtship, though Kristoff is thinking about taking things to the next level. Their snowman sidekick Olaf (Josh Gad), magically brought to life by Elsa’s powers in the last film, is confronting the mysteries that accompany his burgeoning maturity, while Kristoff’s trusty reindeer Sven is never far from his side.
But every tale needs a complication and boy does this story, credited to Lee and an additional four writers, pull together a needlessly complicated one! Elsa begins to hear an ethereal voice calling from the wild, one that no one else can hear. In a prologue that revisits Elsa and Ana’s childhood, we hear a bedtime story told to the girls by their father (Alfred Molina), who recounts his first royal visit as a young prince. Travelling with his father, King Runeard, and their entourage into the Enchanted Forest to strike a treaty with the native Northuldra people, the prince is endangered when a scuffle suddenly erupts, only to be rescued by an unidentified figure. Now, all these years later, Elsa is convinced that her secret caller is somehow linked to her late father’s saviour.
Despite her fervent desire to answer the call, Elsa stifles her natural curiosity to focus on leading her people, until a seemingly supernatural attack, drawing on the elements of wind, fire, earth and water, puts their town of Arendelle at risk. Linking her phantom voice with this worrying development, Elsa resolves to journey into the Enchanted Forest to find the voice, but Ana, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven insist on accompanying her on what seems likely to be a dangerous adventure.
As it should be clear by now, the setup required to get the gang on the road for another adventure is bizarrely convoluted (how many kids are walking into an animated Disney flick looking for a lesson in the history of a fictional kingdom?). However, after the lore-dense opening half hour (which benefits from the inclusion of Elsa’s showstopping track ‘Into the Unknown’, the sequel’s answer to ‘Let It Go’), ‘Frozen II’ clicks into gear and starts to both have fun and tap into an old emotional vein that still bears rich material: the sisterly bond between Elsa and Ana. While Olaf is busy becoming self-aware (his running commentary on the symbolism of an Enchanted Forest in popular culture is a hoot), and Kristoff grapples with Ana’s apparent prioritisation of Elsa before him (hilariously rendered as an 80’s power ballad titled ‘Lost in the Woods’), the sisters are just trying to keep one another safe from the growing threats that surround them.
Directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck successfully build most of the story around this sororal bond, which is stretched as Elsa and Ana play to their own strengths in their efforts to save Arendelle. Returning voice actors Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell do a terrific job of succinctly communicating their deep relationship, and their work ensures that this sequel remains true to the first film by being a love story about sisters at its centre. Lee and Buck also benefit from the stunning animation at their disposal, which renders the natural environments with astonishing realism and the characters with highly expressive and emotive features.
Songwriters Kristen and Robert Lopez, who penned the tunes last time to rave reviews, return with the same sure hand in their possession, producing several more terrific songs that – other than the more genre-adventurous ‘Lost in the Woods’ – sit easily alongside those from the last ‘Frozen’. They’re not striking out in a bold new direction, but the music is as good as you’d hope from an animated musical (the only meh note is Ana’s big moment, a slightly uninteresting track called ‘The Next Right Thing’ that is further hampered by the screenplay leaning on a couple of character deaths that never feel permanent for emotional weight). Arguably the high note, Elsa’s emotional pinnacle – an epic choral piece titled ‘Show Yourself’ – is guaranteed to fill you with chills, which any filmmakers behind a franchise labelled ‘Frozen’ must be especially pleased about.
When it works, ‘Frozen II’ is easily as good as the previous movie (dare I say it, even better). When it doesn’t, it’s a little bewildering given the calibre of talent involved, though these first act jitters prove short-lived. It’s as if, when crushed by the weight of proving that they had a strong justification for returning to the franchise that made them (semi-)household names, they let the pressure get to them. When working on the third movie, they’d do well to remember Elsa’s well-worn advice and just ‘Let It Go’.
Callum Ryan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.
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