Frozen II (2019)

Before I get in to this, I suppose I should really give some background on my long history with the original movie of Frozen (2013). It's easily my most favourite Disney movie of all time and has come to mean a great deal to me, especially the character of Elsa as she was finally a fictional character I could relate to in absolutely every way, and having felt like an oddball my entire life that really mattered. I also really love Prince Hans who is very similar to Elsa in many ways - two sides of the same coin if you will, and show how people can respond to trauma is separate ways. It's often overlooked because of the end "twist" to his character (the film's main weak spot in my opinion, and feels like the last minute decision that it was) but it's explained a few times that Hans suffered abuse at home and it's been explored more in official supplementary materials released by Disney, and Elsa was obviously traumatised by her powers and needing to hide. But whereas Hans takes his trauma out on Anna (which Elsa does too, let's be honest), Elsa is much more internalised and takes things out on herself. In fact all of the main characters are incredibly complex and relatable, which is no doubt a huge part of the film's success and it deals with a lot of really deep themes considering how many people like to brush Disney movies off as "for kids".

I might do a full review about Frozen at some point as I love it so much and after years of obsessing and analysing have so many thoughts on it, but for now I wanted to talk about Frozen II (2019). I saw this film once, at the cinema on it's release day, and these are my initial thoughts. The fact that it came out in November 2019, and I'm writing this intro in April 2020 and haven't seen it again since should be a big spoiler as to my feelings about it! And I know I wasn't alone in my disappointment as most of the hardcore Frozen fans I speak to on a regular basis all had the same hang ups.


I want to stress that it's not a bad film, and if it wasn't related to Frozen and told it's story with it's own set of characters I'd probably enjoy it. And it feels like they have done that to an extent as the characters are so far removed from everything set out in the first movie and there's so many plot holes that just don't add up, particularly the whole story with their parents and how and why they died and outright blaming Elsa for her parents deaths which was such a cheap shot. And there's a lot of cheap shots in this movie, and I don't understand why? Are Disney trying really hard to be 'ironic'? If so it doesn't work. They make several jokes about Elsa's Let It Go scene, and even show Elsa cringing at herself during a flashback. Yes that song is overplayed, but it got overplayed because it resonated with a lot of people and it was a key part of the first film and Elsa's growth, and so why would she cringe at that part of herself? Nor does it make any sense how Olaf and Kristoff would have any idea of what Elsa looked like in the part Olaf enacts in the charades scene as neither of them were with Elsa during Let It Go. It was just an excuse to take yet another swing at their most successful movie to date, and speaking as someone who owns a large Frozen collection and has invested a lot of my time and money into things surrounding the film it just felt really tacky.


There were several cheap shots at the character of Prince Hans too, which I knew about before going in but they were just...odd? There was literally no reason to mention him as he didn't fit into the script in any way, so it felt like a direct attack at the fanbase who have been pestering Disney for his return and better character treatment. Not even necessarily redemption, we've just wanted him fleshed out more as he's such an interesting complex character who was canonically abused as a child by his family and they saw that as a reason to make him "an evil sociopath" according to Jennifer Lee (which he's not, he's a WEAK ASS villain with shaky motive who gave up without any resistance) and now he's the butt of every joke, and it's like, what kind of message is that for Disney to send out about victims of abuse?? Elsa and Anna spent years yearning for acceptance themselves and literally the entire message of the first movie is "love thaws a frozen heart" - unless you're called Hans and then you'll just get thrown under the bus at every available opportunity. (And just for reference if you didn't know, he was never originally supposed to be the villain in Frozen, it was a last minute decision which is why he's so weak and there's zero foreshadowing and it makes NO sense as a 'twist', and the original script of Frozen II focused on Hans and redeeming him and even had a hinted romance between him and Elsa, so to do this complete 180 on his character has left fans angry and confused)

The animation of this film was really beautiful, I especially enjoyed the scenes of Elsa in the water with the Nokk and her taming him, and I liked that the film didn't dumb anything down and actually dealt with adult themes of loss and grief without glossing over it. The kids in the movie theatre were really aggravating me as they were all restless, and it's probably because they didn't have a clue what was going on on screen because it's not a dumbed down kids movie. Not only is there the death of the parents brought back up, but Elsa dies which is quickly followed by Olaf dying in Anna's arms, Anna singing an entire song about her grief and feelings of abandonment, plus the murder and quarantine of indigenous people, and that's heavy going for Disney!

I'd heard a lot of good things about the soundtrack, and I'd avoided it despite it being all over YouTube as I wanted to wait to hear the songs in the context of the movie before I made a decision on them. And I thought they were all really weak, I couldn't hum you a single one as they were so forgettable. Maybe they'll grow on me, but I just didn't even care when they were singing and as a hardcore fan of musicals that's a pretty major thing for me to say! I'd heard a lot of 'Kristoff's 80s power ballad', and didn't realise that it was literally an 80s power ballad that the entire plot grinds to a sudden halt for and embarrassingly plays out like a bad music video and it was just really odd and clearly just there to give Jonathan Groff a song and no other reason, Kristoff doesn't even serve a purpose for most of the movie. Olaf was fairly pointless too, and he's been infantalised to such a degree that he's kind of annoying. I always defend him in the first movie as he represents the love Anna and Elsa shared as sisters and he saves Anna from being locked in the library and moves the plot forward, but he does nothing in this at all besides some lame comic relief.


My biggest issue with this movie though is simply how much it retcons the original, and takes its themes and messages and just tosses them away. Although the entire first movie was about Anna and Elsa reuniting, by the end of this film they're entirely separated. Elsa follows a voice in her head that only she can hear which leads her North, actively pushing Anna away, and after dying by freezing to death (even though "the cold doesn't bother her", guess we're going back on that!) she's brought back by becoming the fifth elemental spirit - as encouraged by the trolls, and there's long been a theory in Frozen fan circles that the trolls are the true villains and this just reinforces that. At the beginning of the original movie the trolls state "the heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded", and it's after Fixer Upper with an actual lyric of "Get the fiance out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed" that Hans does his complete 180 which allows Kristoff, the trolls adopted son, to date the princess of Arendelle. Now the trolls actively encouraged Elsa to abdicate and become the elemental spirit and leave the throne to Anna, which makes Kristoff, aka their adopted son, KING OF ARENDELLE. I smell several rats!!

Anyway, trolls aside, Elsa gives up her life to become the fifth elemental spirit and becomes some kind of Goddess of the North riding through the lands on Nokk, and it's like...the WHOLE ENTIRE first film is about Elsa's humanity, and then you take that away from her at the first opportunity?!? She spends the whole first movie trying to prove that she's a person no different from any other and just happens to have these powers she doesn't understand and that she doesn't need to isolate herself, but now according to this sequel she's always known that she was meant for bigger, better things and is better off alone? None of this film makes any sense in the context of the first movie, and it changes so much of the characters to make them fit this plot that they're barely recognisable. And it's such a shame, because if they weren't so busy making cheap shots at their own success and taunting fans then they could of expanded on these characters and made a film just as meaningful as the original but without the rushed plot changes. And as it is, we've ended up with a film that adds nothing to the development of these characters or their story, a flat plot line, and a forgettable mediocre soundtrack. Watching it, it seriously felt like the creators just don't care about Frozen anymore and that they tried to write something to end it with some finality, and I just find the whole attitude Disney have towards it extremely odd when you consider what a cash cow it is for them and how it revived the whole company when the first movie was released. They could at least show it some respect, but apparently that's too much to ask for.

The only thing I did kind of like from the whole mess was when Elsa was in Ahtohallan it finally felt like she was truly becoming The Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen's novel, and I could picture her taking Kai there to rebuild the mirror and that was kind of cool. There was also a throwaway comment in a flashback scene where it shows Agnarr reading a book and he says it's "some new Danish author", and I just appreciated them touching on the source material like that as it felt so far removed in the first movie.