'Frozen II'
In a decade that ends with Disney as the singularly dominant force in film, Frozen II is a fitting capper - a cinematic encapsulation of all the good and the bad that comes with Mickey Mouse swallowing much of the industry whole.
Disney’s present-day hegemony is, of course, all encompassing, stretching from the multiplex to theme parks, from every imaginable merchandising extension to the Marvel universe to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But as Walt himself was keen to point out, it was all started by a mouse. In that last context, it is Frozen, more than any of the many, many Disney box office smashes of the ‘10s, that is the spiritual successor to the company’s deepest roots.
For all its multi-channel, multi-generational dominance, Disney is still most strongly associated with princesses and whimsical, imaginative animation and earworm tunes that are meant to be belted out at the top of their lungs by kids. Enter Frozen in 2013, which even six years on from its release is the standard bearer of that tradition for a new generation. I don’t think it’s Disney’s best animated film of the last 10 years, and while it has considerable charms, it doesn’t hold up all that well upon repeated viewings (trust me, I would know). But my opinion of its relative merits matters considerably less than what my daughters think of it, and the amount of Frozen tchotchkes surrounding me as I write could tell you all you need to know about where they stand.
And so here comes Frozen II, a sequel about which it is easy to be cynical, but which, much like its immediate predecessor has just enough charm to leave you with the warm and fuzzies.
The story picks up with Anna and Queen Elsa ruling Arendelle comfortably, which of course can’t last, as one of the film’s first musical numbers, “Some Things Never Change,” acknowledges with a sizable wink. The first film mended the sororal bond between Anna and Elsa and brought Anna and her love interest Kristoff together. But Elsa, even with her magical powers under control, still cut a lonely and mysterious figure at the end of the first film, and the sequel sets out to clear up at least some of those mysteries.
Making sense of Elsa, her powers, and her place in the world requires the entire crew from Arendelle to trek north, toward a hypnotic voice only she can hear and an enchanted forest shrouded in a decades-old protective mist of sorts. And so north they go.
The gang is back together and striking out on an adventure. The impetus for their trek is an unexplored angle from the first time we saw them all together. Superficially, these are the hallmarks of a limp sequel, and there are definitely moments where this is not much more.
But Frozen II manages to avoid spoiling all the charms of the first film through what I would vaguely characterize as Disney magic. To get more specific ..
It has terrific music. The husband-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristin Anderson-Lopez conjured up another suite of hummable, singalongable, repeatable tunes. There might not be anything as catchy as “Let It Go,” but there’s more depth and playfulness this time around - a more diverse palette highlighted by the haunting lullaby “All Is Found” (as sung by Evan Rachel Wood) and the ‘80s-style power ballad “Lost in the Woods” (as sung by Jonathan Groff, the voice of Kristoff). If you have kids, they’ll be belting out “Into the Unknown,” a companion to “Let It Go” that again gives Idina Menzel a chance to show off her vocal range.
It still has great characters. Josh Gad’s Olaf wasn’t quite the delight this time around. He teeters on the edge of grating on occasion. But I was happy to get significantly more time with Groff’s Kristoff and Menzel’s Elsa.
Most of all, it still has inspired, boundary-pushing animation. Everything in Arendelle and beyond looks quite a bit sharper than last time around, a similar sensation to the one I had watching Toy Story 4 a full decade after last seeing Buzz, Woody and the gang. This isn’t all or even mostly about technical achievement, though. This is about putting something on screen that just can’t really be done in real life - something that can only be brought to life from someone’s imagination. As Elsa presses further north on her journey of self-discovery, Frozen II gets better and better in this respect - from a splashy purple and red and teal encounter with an adorable fire spirit to a surrealist, trippy push across the dark sea and to a mystical river that has the answers Elsa seeks.
Put much more briefly, Disney can still Disney, even 80-plus years after the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
It’s a good thing it can, because a lesser studio with a lesser history and pedigree simply couldn’t pull off Frozen II and have it feel like anything but a pure cash grab. Indeed, sequels themselves feel very off brand when considering Disney’s animated filmography. As Disney+ has reminded me, it released a spate of direct-to-DVD sequels in the 1980s and 1990s. But, setting those aside, the company has by and large avoided bringing back its beloved characters in any other context than the vault. No new stories, just the same old ones you loved when you were a kid.
Obviously, Disney is a different company now - it is a behemoth. It’s worth remembering that it only became one because of how different its spirit and approach to filmmaking was back when it was just an upstart. The drive to create something totally new and fantastic - to make the seemingly impossible real - came straight from Walt Disney himself, and it reaches to the present day with Frozen II. Sequels, by their nature, don’t really fit in a culture that prizes the new and the next. The very fact of this film’s existence might signify shifting winds. But when it comes to the film itself, this is no red flag. This is more of the same - more of the reason Disney has been able to corner the hearts and minds of so many children for so many decades.