OVP: Frozen II (2019)

Film: Frozen II (2019)
Stars: Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad
Director: Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Into the Unknown")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I get asked a lot-why movies and not TV?  This isn't a stupid question.  Television is a bigger part of our modern landscape, has an enormous amount of content, and if done correctly, can tell a more complicated and interwoven story.  That last part, though, is why I always prefer film.  Television has access to more in-depth character development, complicated narrative arches, and more hours to grow an emotional arc...but usually it ends up pulling the same story turning it into digital taffy.  Very few TV series don't eventually run into repetition, seasons that make no sense or go off on tangents that would make a cinematic editor blush, and oftentimes the story doesn't even finish because the series is cancelled.  Film doesn't have any of that-it's finite, brief (like a novel), but finite.  Most movies are made without the intent of ever having a sequel (though with the advent of tentpoles, this might be better translated into "most films that I seek out are made without a sequel"), and it's odd when movies that didn't need a sequel get one.  That's what's on tap with Frozen II, a follow-up to the gargantuan Disney hit that was a complete tale all on its lonesome, so Disney was given the unusual task of extending a story it clearly meant to have already finished.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place three years after the last film, where Elsa (Menzel) becomes queen and she opens up the kingdom so that she and her sister Anna (Bell) can finally make amends.  The film reverts back a bit in the progress it made in the last film, with Elsa still unsure of herself in her role as monarch, though now Anna has taken over the role of (over)-protector of Elsa from her parents, much to the chagrin of Kristoff (Groff), who wants a few moments alone with Anna so that he can propose.  Combined with Olaf (Gad) randomly having an existential crisis about aging, the film needs a monkey wrench and it gets one when (after being heavily foreshadowed in a story about the elements told to the girls in their childhood), the elements vanish from Arundel, and the people are forced high onto a cliff.  The four adventurers, along with Kristoff's horse Sven (also Groff) trek to the far north, where they find a magical forest shrouded by fog where time seems to have stopped.  In this forest, Elsa is going to find the secret of her powers, and eventually come to terms with where her life is supposed to grow.

This movie is 103 minutes long, and I haven't even dented the plot with that paragraph.  Most films you can sum up in one paragraph if you try, but Frozen II isn't possible to do that with because, well, it meanders.  For a movie that essentially didn't need to exist, and didn't exist prior to the last film's gigantic haul, it sure has a lot of ideas, and this is its biggest downfall, because while it's covered in lore & legend for the Frozen universe (you can practically hear the screams from the eventual ride that will be at DisneyLand for this movie during Anna's boat ride through the Earth Monsters' cove), this movie doesn't have much to say.  The film continually retreads the previous film, with at least a dozen blatant "inside" jokes for the audience, but it can't find anything new to compel us to stay other than our admiration for the first movie.  So much plot is covering up the fact that there wasn't really a lot left to say about this world, and origin stories for powers almost always strip the magic from a tale, not enhance it (see also Joker, a very different film that expands the universe of a film franchise in unnecessary ways).

The movie's score is fine, if not remotely as memorable as the first-not only is there no "Let It Go" in this movie, there's no "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" either.  The big ballads are both given to Menzel, with "Into the Unknown" looking like the Oscar play (and in a year where the film's biggest competition is Beyonce's "Spirit" the Lopezes may well end up with another trophy for their shelf), though one could argue "Show Yourself" has more emotional resonance in the film (even if it's not as grand).  The strangest number is "Lost in the Woods," which is a way for the franchise to make up to the golden-throated Jon Groff his lack of a song in the first film (in my mind the most compelling reason for a sequel), but it's so a-characteristic of the rest of the score (it sounds more like an upbeat power ballad from the early 90's) that I felt less like it was a hilarious joke for the adults in the audience and more like it was a twee reminder of the film's lack of cohesion.

The saving grace for the film is that it's gorgeously animated.  Frozen isn't one of the movies, even this decade, that I'd point to as being one of Disney's "prettiest" pictures (Moana comes to mind, certainly Coco and Brave if we expand into Pixar), but Frozen II certainly deserves a spot on that list.  The scene where Elsa is trying to run across a raging sea, and then gets into a fight with a water horse is easily the best scene of the movie (and one of the best action scenes this year, period), and is like an oil painting it's so lovely.  The autumn leaves, the bereft landscape-it all adds up to a really beautiful film, just unfortunately one with not much to say.