Frozen II

Grade: B

It was about halfway through Frozen II when the realization officially hit home: this is an endearingly peculiar movie. It was at the point where the action takes a break for a Kristoff-led solo. In the midst of what had been a typical Disney score up until then, here comes a number that is in the style of an electric guitar and keyboard-bathed 80s power ballad – animated like a music video from that time period. This is the kind of random tangent you can expect from Frozen II. The dense, convoluted, and complicated plot will surely challenge the younger viewers. It is such a diversion from the first film that periodically, I almost forgot I was watching a sequel to Frozen.

Overall, the filmmakers did a fine job of taking things in a different direction. You can almost taste the painstakingly concentrated effort from the composers not to make anything sound too much like something that was previously done – though I did play the Guess The Influence game a couple of times. Elsa is drawn by a faraway siren-like voice she keeps hearing. This voice sings the same four notes over and over, which also appeared in one of Jack’s solos in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I kept wanting to hum it. A few dramatic elements made me think of What Dreams May Come and the Simpsons episode where Lisa finds out that Jebediah Springfield wasn’t quite the good guy everybody thought he was.

The songs feel more evenly distributed here than in Frozen, and Anna gets her own Let It Go of sorts – a nice showstopping number called The Next Right Thing. That phrase gets belabored to within an inch of its life throughout the whole film, until its inevitable namesake song gets an airing late in the movie. Elsa’s big number – the one that the movie seems to want us all to remember – is called Into the Unknown. The verses are herky-jerky and unmemorable, but the chorus is strong and fun to hear. She has another one later on, that I liked and almost loved, called Show Yourself. Speaking from a musical perspective, there is an odd number of measures in the choruses – rather than the psychologically satisfying even number – before the title phrase gets repeated. Just adding those few extra beats could have given it more impact. When this movie becomes a phenomenon, and you hear all the songs everywhere you go, I may get used to them. These are just my initial knee-jerk reactions before the “Frozen II mania” takes over.

All our favorite characters are back, and as charming as before. The “locations” are gorgeous to look at and hear. It gets deep, dark, and somber. It has twists, turns, and diversions you wouldn’t expect. The ending happens too easily, as no important character who dies actually stays dead, and magic solves everything. But it’s fascinating how different and “all over the place” this sequel is. Frozen II is the next right thing.

Grade: B