Disney, in recent years, has had a complete monopoly on the film industry, especially the kids’ film industry. This has almost always been how Disney’s operated, ever since the Disney Renaissance of the 1990’s that brought such iconic films as The Lion King. In the 2010’s, however, Disney had a different face; namely, that of the 2013 film Frozen. The film became one of Disney’s most popular in recent memory, and (to put it bluntly) made too much money for Disney to not make a sequel.

Frozen II is a 2019 war documentary taking place… sometime after the first one. It seems to be relatively soon after, as much of the first film’s events are referenced as if they’re very recent, but at the same time, other scenes treat the actions of the original film as old news for the characters. Either way, the film follows the main cast of the original film until about midway through Act 2, when it just writes out everyone except for Elsa and Anna for the remaining 50 minutes of the film. The story is equal parts predictable and nonsensical, but not in the way that something like Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling uses well. Story beats just come and go, with the vast majority of the film seemingly having no real “goal” beyond having Elsa and Anna onscreen for as much of it as possible. The music, arguably the highlight of any modern Disney film, is also calculated and mediocre, with each character getting a song that the marketing team can easily convert into an .mp3 file to play out of toys’ speakers. The only truly notable song in the entire film is a parody of 90’s boy bands, which is equal parts hysterical and surprisingly sound as its own song.

From an animation standpoint, nothing has changed from Frozen to Frozen 2. The comedy and writing, however, have taken huge downfalls.Whereas the character of Olaf from the first was clear “we need a character to turn into plush toys” bait, Josh Gad’s performance and the almost improv-sounding dialogue made him a genuinely funny character that only crossed the line into obnoxious a handful of times. In Frozen 2, however, Olaf’s character is replaced with only marketability and how often and loud he can yell all his lines. Even outside of the dedicated comic relief character, Frozen 2 has very few attempts at comedy, and far fewer that hit their mark.

It is my philosophy that “it’s a kids’ movie” is not a valid reason for a film to be good or bad. Just because it’s Disney doesn’t make it perfect, but just because it’s rated G doesn’t mean it can’t be just as good as an R-rated film. Frozen 2 is a textbook case of “kids’ movie”, where everything in the film is either made to make toys or to appeal to young children. After the original Frozen was one of the best modern Disney films (alongside Zootopia and Moana), the fact that its sequel is completely passionless doesn’t bode well for the future of Disney’s ALL AGES film catalogue. I’d make a joke here or reference the film, but I don’t have anything to say, so… the main theme sampled an Usher song, so there’s that.

OVERALL SCORE:

2.5/5 stars.

SHOULD YOU SEE IT?:

If you’re a huge Disney completionist, or have a younger sibling who wants to, go ahead, but don’t expect anything much beyond mediocrity.