Geekatana Review - Frozen II

With the review of the first Frozen film down its finally high time we dive into the review of the second film. We watched this thursday night which is a day after the opening. We were planning to watch it on opening day but decided on the day after.

Since I've already watched and done a review of the first film I'll be making slight comparison to it a bit. I'll try not to spoil anything but I will probably touch on thing that was shown in the trailer. but just in case the minor spoiler flag is up for this review.

Roughly three years has passed since the incident of the first film Elsa thought she has finally settled down on adventuring until she starts hearing voices. She tries hard to ignore them but when her kingdom is threaten by magical elements Elsa sets off with Anna and the rest of group to one more adventure that leads them to a magical forest covered in mist.

Storywise Frozen 2 is quite entertaining having that high adventure feel you would find in a typical DnD campaign quest. While the first film takes it concept from the farytale story of the "Snow Queen" the second film is its own tale. The film is a brave new take on the Ice Queen mythos and the adventure takes place outside the usual snowy land that was the first film. If anything it shows that Frozen is a proper sequel for once and not just another Frozen short.

The movie is a bit darker and serious compared to the first film. The film doubles down on the usual comedy courtesy of a certain snow person which can be rather too much at times. The movie does tugs on the heart string and is a bit more mature this time around hinting that these characters and the movie itself has moved forward and a great amount of time has passed.

Character wise the movie focuses on the relationship of Anna and Elsa as sisters. How much the two has been more close now than ever. There's also a side story about Kristoff and his growing affection towards Anna. Sadly the film also introduced other new characters but felt more like fillers and plot devices to the movie that by the end of the movie you probably can't even name a single one of them. I'm looking at you Arandelle soldiers.

Visually Frozen 2 is a step up from the first film as the scenes are far more realistic and are more refined this time. You can just watch the trailer with Elsa trying to cross the waves to see how extremely well made the second film is. Each leaf, each tree and each water drop is done in great detail that the movie is pure eye candy to watch from beginning to end.

As for the songs Frozen 2 won't beat the global phenomenon that is "Let it Go" although it does have some decent songs. The problem with the songs in Frozen 2 is that the lyrics are a little bit hard to follow unless the movie comes with subtitles or you took the time to googled them at one point already. Still "Into the Woods" is way leagues better than "Reindeers are not People." It's a likely bet that a lot of people will come out of watching Frozen 2 trying to get the high notes of "Into the Unknown."

Sadly the movie does have some plot holes. There's a part about Elsa and Anna's parents that has not been completely resolved for one. There are at least three subplots going through at the same time that didn't have a proper closure. The movie also had a great well written mature story but suddenly the writers decided it was a kids movie and went on to go for that usually Disney ending instead. I guess they can't risk a franchise until they can milk it to death.

Don't get me wrong I love Frozen 2 and I think it did a lot better storywise compared to the first film but I still felt it went a bit short on where I think it could have been better. While the villain in the first film needed to be more menacing Frozen 2 is more lacking. But alas this is a Disney movie and I guess they don't want to traumatize kids the way Avengers did. Speaking of Avengers theres a scene here with Elsa going pretty much going Avengers Infinity War-ish. You will know what I mean when you see it.

If you love Frozen then you will definitely find something to like in this film. If you are not a fan of Frozen or don't care for it you won't find nothing new in this film that will make you want to go jump into the fandom. The film is clearly not a perfect movie but its still visually better than its predecessor. Frozen 2 is also lot better than the first film in terms of plot but fails to fully commit to the mature theme that it started out to be. A must watch recommendation to any fan of the franchise.