Review: Frozen II

Posted on 14 December, 2019

Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient, autumn-bound forest of an enchanted land. They set out to find the origin of Elsa’s powers in order to save their kingdom. IMDb

If you haven’t already seen this you must not have any princess-loving relations under 10. In 2013 we all learnt how to Let it Goooooooo and now we’re being urged Into the Unknooooown—and it is quite a ride, an enjoyable ride.

Dark at times but with that core of sister solidarity that will always win, this is Disney’s attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

This is most evident in the, for me, somewhat cynically realised showstopper mentioned above. Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa, has a brilliant set of pipes and sings both songs with chutzpah.

For Broadway lovers she was Elphaba in Wicked long before she was Elsa. Can you hear the extended note—Defying Graavityyyyy?.

You can practically hear the producers—”Just give the girl another note to carry and we’ll have another hit, boys”. Yeah, not so much.

For me the showstopper is Lost in the Woods—a 90s boy band soul-filled ballad sung by Christoph and Sven the reindeer and other back up reindeer.

No, really. It’s awesome—slow-motion hair tosses, triple harmony choruses and even a diamond of heads (one human, three reindeer) reminiscent of Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody. I laughed like a drain.

Then it hit me why I knew the name of the voice actor who sings that song—Jonathon Groff. He plays Agent Holden Ford in the most intense procedural crime show I’ve ever watched—Mindhunter, where he and his partner virtually invent suspect profiling by interviewing mass murderers. So now I don’t know how I feel about either show! But back to the movie.

It looks great—I thought animation had already reached its peak with the first one but in this you can see the nap on a felt cloak—richness in every single frame.

There are some good underlying themes too. The Elsa that realised her power in the first film didn’t seem likely to settle down and this extends that story. The princess has an adventure, a quest—she is the hero. However, when you have a sister, you are never alone and Anna’s comeback when Elsa says she can’t come with her is excellent.

There are also an indigenous people north of the kingdom of Arendelle, based on the Sámi people of Scandinavia.

Disney actually signed an agreement with their representatives to have an advisory group of historians, elders, artists and political leaders involved to make sure they got the depiction right. So there’s that too. In fact, the strongest message after ‘girls should have adventures too’ is about anti-colonialism.

Then there is Olaf the snowman (the real reason I like these movies). He is in fine form and I would pay heaps the see him and the guy from Ant Man narrate a film together. That would be gold.

Make sure you sit through all the credits for a little Easter egg at the end where this storytelling gift shines!

Feature image: via Facebook