Well here we are, it's 2019 and we're wizzed back to the icy juggernaut with a sequel to 2013's smash hit, "Frozen 2." And of course, it's breathtaking! The visuals constantly dazzled, enhanced by the 3D glasses I paid a slight surcharge for, and the songs! My goodness! Are any stuck in my head currently? Well, no, but give it time, I'm sure tomorrow when I'm at the store every child will be singing one or two of the newest ballets while I wait at checkout.
It's also darker, a more intimate affair with the beloved characters, exploited to their rawest emotions, some of the deeper animated expressions from the House of Mouse in a long time. Remember how the death of Elsa and Anna's parents in "Frozen 1" was glossed over in the beginning? Well here not only are they alive via flashbacks, but we also explore the site of their demise, as well as a few plot developments and the impacts to the dual female leads (of course leading to more than a few CGI tears shed). Ballads this time around emphasise less on grand scale and more on more the characters, choosing closeup shots over the lavish autumn environments. It's moments like this, and there are a lot of them, that bring these more mature themes to the level kids will hopefully not just pay attention to, but also understand.
Take the signature song of secondary character Olaf (Josh Gad), the dimwitted snowman, "When I Am Older." Dealing with the realizations of not understanding the world around him, it's packed with a host of visual gags, but the concept is not your typical bright and cheery noise (and thank god there are Dreamworks-esque pop song phoned in).
We follow Elsa (Idina Menzel), now more comfortably resting as Queen of Arendelle, though recently bothered by a haunting voice that hums just a few notes. She doesn't share this with her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) or Anna's boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) (or that damn dopey snowman), but she unintentionally awakens the four elemental spirits (earth, water, fire and air) and their forced to evacuate their kingdom. This leads our foursome (well, fivesome if you include Sven the reindeer) to the Enchanted Forest, guarded by a wall of fog that prevents anyone from entering or returning.
The voice unlocks then traps our group inside, only to find lost Arendelle soldiers battling the Northuldra tribe, having done so for decades since the mist first formed. There are some vague Pocahontas vibes here, as its explained the two societies once shared a gentle alliance and the territory, only to turn to bloodshed. But the only way to end their conflict, and to calm the angered spirits, is to discover and repair history, as Elsa explains, and the cast separate on their way to Ahtohallan, a river of memories past.
I'm going to stop there summarizing the tale; I don't want to spoil anything. This is a relatively complex narrative, lacking a true villain, characters destined to fall in love, or a world to save (the only thing in danger here is their kingdom of Arendelle, hardly something Clark Kent would enter a telephone booth for). And compared against some of the upcoming animated films previewed before my early morning showing (I'm looking at you, "Playmobil: the Movie"), Disney seems to be mostly treating kids with the understanding that they're actually pretty smart.
What returns from its predecessor, aside from the glimpses of whimsy and astonishing musical numbers, is the confused narrative, which seems to forget about everyone but Elsa from time to time with its myriad of twists and turns and plethora of underdeveloped tertiary characters. I mean, does anyone remember the Duke of Weselton from Frozen 1? Well, somehow he makes a brief cameo here (grumble grumble.) It's a disperate experience when you're not caught up in the amazing majesty.
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