I was looking at some of my old blog posts a few days ago and I realized how much I missed reviewing movies, so I was like "LET'S GET BACK INTO IT!" Obviously I will be continuing the Filmmaker Reviews AG Movies series, but I saw Frozen 2 today and I thought it was the perfect movie to start my review series back up with- after all, it's Disney.
To be 100% honest, I wasn't really looking forward to this one. It's obvious they only made a second Frozen to make money, and the previews made it look like they were trying too hard to make it an action movie. When I was younger, I liked Frozen, but looking back, it was really overhyped. (Tangled was better.) But when my dad got tickets for us to see it together, I was like "why not? It'll be fun, considering I'm seeing it in 4DX*!" Here's what I thought:
WARNING: There WILL BE filmmaker ranting! (And some specific stuff from the movie, but I won't spoil anything major)
What I liked:
The animation was GORGEOUS. From snow to leaves to pretty much everything, it looked pretty real... and it was beautiful.
The songs were mostly good... some of them were unnecessary (and the first act was probably 50% singing), but others worked to move the story forward (like Into the Unknown and The Next Right Thing) or highlight a character's emotions in that moment (Lost In The Woods).
Anna's character arc. She went from 'okay I'm coming along, too' to actually DOING STUFF that reflected how she felt. To be 100% honest, I felt like she did more in this movie than she did in the first Frozen...
What I didn't like:
But for the other character arcs... well, if you want a character to have an arc, either hit or get off the plate. No arc at all is better than a failed one... and that's what everyone else's was. Elsa didn't change or evolve from the first movie at ALL... and it's Filmmaker 101 to not have a static character as your protagonist, so it beats me that Jennifer Lee (the writer) got away with it and Disney didn't question a thing. Kristoff and Olaf, on the other hand, existed only to propose to Anna many times and be funny/question life. They tried to frame it as an 'arc', but in reality, it was just a few repeated jokes and in the end, just like Elsa, nothing changed about those characters.
The new characters were useless. Enough said.
I noticed they took some elements from Tangled, such as a lullaby that guided the plot and a new character named Rider. You know, like Flynn Rider?
They tried to congratulate themselves for making the first Frozen a hit too many times. (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) Mentioning Hans in a game of charades? Haha! Olaf recapping the entire first movie to the new characters? Funny. Showing footage from the first movie during a musical sequence? Okay, maybe a little too much. Having a climax built on flashbacks? HECK NO.
Speaking of flashbacks, here's one of the two major problems with this movie: it's stuck in the past. The entire plot of this movie is finding out answers about their backstory. Sure, that's fine. But at least fifteen minutes of this movie was flashbacks, and none of these revelations really paid off that much. I read in a screenwriting article once, "I don't care about the backstory. Give me the front story." I feel like Lee had too much fun with the backstory, only to realize that there was no room for the front story at all.
And when she tried to do the front story... it failed! The other major problem is that the present revelations and character choices mostly were anticlimactic... because they relied on telling information, rather than showing it. Let's say that we spent the entire first Frozen movie watching Elsa play around in her ice castle, and once she comes back, Anna says "HANS IS EVIL!" That was literally how they played with most of the plot points. Either that, or a flashback.
Overall: You know that thing Disney just came out with, Disney +? Well, if you have it and are paying a few bucks a month, just wait for this to come out there- because Disney doesn't need to be rewarded with more money for trying to make more money out of an unnecessary and awful sequel.
Rating: 4/10
*4DX- the BEST way to see a movie at my movie theater. Not only is it 3D, but it has moving seats, mist, awesome sound- you really feel like you're in the movie. It even makes the most boring movies fun.*