Disney Movie Challenge
Frozen 2 (2019)
The second sequel in a row for Disney, and with lots of remakes of their classic films it made me wonder if Disney ran out of ideas. This movie came out at the end of 2019 and was one of the biggest films of the year. When the pandemic hit in 2020 Disney surprised everyone by releasing it months early on Disney+. That’s when I first watched but honestly didn't remember much about it.
Frozen II picks up 3 years after Frozen and everyone is living happily ever after. That is until Elsa hears a voice. She sets out on another adventure but Anna isn’t going to let her go alone this time. And if Anna is going then so is Kristof, Sven, and Olaf. The 5 of them head into the enchanted forest to try to figure out how to reverse the curse and find out whose voice Elsa keeps hearing. Along the way they meet the 4 spirits, Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. Elsa and Anna learn secrets about their past and how Elsa got her magic powers.
After denying they would make a sequel to Frozen for a couple of years Disney finally officially announced the film in 2015. After making the short film Frozen Fever the creative team of Jennifer Lee (writer-director), Christopher Buck (director), and Peter Del Vecho (producer) decided they wanted to spend more time with those characters and decided to have it focus on Anna and Elsa’s history. The most interesting thing about the production is that they went to Norway, Sweden, and Finland and worked with the indigenous population there to try to get the culture right. A partnership formed between Disney and the representative’s of the Sámi people. Here is an interesting article about the agreement from Arctic Today https://www.arctictoday.com/how-a-collaboration-with-disney-shaped-the-way-sami-cultural-details-were-portrayed-in-frozen-2/ .
The years between the first and second film saw some technological advancement in animation and Disney wanted Frozen II to show that off. The big advancements came from the way they animated items moving in the wind, especially hair, and how the water spirit looks. They wanted to have the water look more realistic than in Moana. They managed to do it so well that the photorealistic water looked out of place from the rest of the movie and had to be toned down.
Despite the advancement in technology the movie felt kind of boring. I have been having trouble figuring out what it is that didn’t work. The most obvious thing is that the songs just aren’t as good. While “Into the Unknown” feels like a good follow up to “Let it Go” the rest of the songs aren’t memorable or fun. The harder thing to figure out was why the story didn’t work. I think the film tried to take the Frozen story into a darker more emotional place but it might have gone too far (both Elsa and Olaf die at one point). The documentary Into the Unknown: Making Frozen II reveals that this was indeed the case. After a surprise test screening in San Diego it was made clear that people didn’t understand what was going on and kids were generally bored. Based on that feedback they added more jokes by Olaf to entertain the kids, and added more of the fire spirit since he was a big hit. The additional jokey material gave the film a disjointed tone. Olaf just seemed to be more annoying in this film and overused as the comic relief.
Similar to Ralph Breaks the Internet this movie has no main villain. The movie is more of a mystery and trying to find out what is going on. There are a lot of “false villains” like the fire spirit. It's interesting because I always felt that the first Frozen would have been better if they didn’t have a villain as that villain seemed tacked on. Now they don’t have a villain and this movie doesn’t work. It just doesn’t hit the emotional beats that it should. I’m not sure if it was just me but when Olaf died it should have affected me more, but maybe because it’s a Disney movie I kind of knew he would be back. Another aspect that the film has in common with Ralph Breaks the Internet is that they both have a character going through an existential crisis. In this one we see Olaf asking lots of questions about growing up and how to deal with things constantly changing. While we really got to see Vanellope deal with her questions in this one Olaf questions is just played for jokes. I wish they delved more into that and see him get some resolution. Looking back at it know it could have been prescient with the amount of changes coming with the pandemic.
Overall: The movie just doesn’t work for me. It’s kind of boring and it’s unfortunate that a lot of the fun of Frozen is missing in the sequel. It could also be that when I first watched it at the beginning of the pandemic and wasn’t quite in the right headspace for this movie. I believe that how you are feeling going into a movie can have an effect on how you enjoy the film. But even watching it again it still didn’t do anything and really isn’t that many memorable scenes. I also forgot how similar to The Fifth Element certain plot points are.
Random Facts
Since Frozen won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars it was surprising that Frozen II wasn’t even nominated. Although “Into the Unknown” was nominated for Best Song. Toy Story 4 won Best Animated Feature and “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman won Best Original Song.
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