Time: 103 Minutes
Age Rating:
Voice Cast:
Kristen Bell as Anna
Idina Menzel as Elsa
Josh Gad as Olaf
Jonathan Groff as Kristoff
Sterling K. Brown as Mattias
Evan Rachel Wood as Iduna
Aurora as The Voice
Alfred Molina as Agnarr
Director: Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee

Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient, autumn-bound forest of an enchanted land. They set out to find the origin of Elsa’s powers in order to save their kingdom.

I remember when I saw Frozen back in 2013, while I wasn’t in love with the movie like a lot of people were, I thought it was pretty good. There have been talks about a sequel for a very long time (especially with all the acclaim and love it has been receiving), and it seemed to have taken them a while for it to happen. However, after 6 years it’s finally here. To be honest, I didn’t really care much about a sequel, I just wasn’t sure there was much that you could follow it up with. Still, I checked it out, and Frozen 2 turned out to be pretty decent and surprising.

One of the things that made me curious about Frozen 2 was some of the mixed or divided reactions to it, not to mention some comparisons to Annihilation of all movies. However it turns out that this comparison is quite apt and valid. Without spoiling anything, the plot of Frozen 2 is actually darker, more complex and larger scale, and goes to places that you wouldn’t expect it to go to, storywise and thematically. It was just a little confusing that the story went in that direction, especially the target audience of the first movie, but at the same time I guess I was interested in it, but I think most of that might have to be how unexpected it is. Looking back at it, it’s a little messy at points. I also didn’t like some of the things it does with some of the characters, mainly Kristoff and Olaf. Kristoff is pretty much only there to save Anna in dangerous situations (while doing the typical goofy trying and failing to propose all the way through), and Olaf particularly wasn’t nearly as funny here as he was in the first movie, he was more of a distraction more than anything. With that said, he does have a moment that was one the best parts of the movie. It’s generally entertaining to watch over its hour and 43 minute runtime.

Frozen 2 is directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, who made the first movie, and they did a pretty good job here too. I’d even say that it might be worth watching for the animation alone, it looks excellent throughout, even better than in the first movie. There are particularly some stunning sequences where the movie gets to show off visually. Might be worth checking out the movie even for that. As we all know, there were plenty of memorable songs in the original Frozen, from Let it Go, Do You Want to Build a Snowman, and so on. As for Frozen 2, the songs are mostly okay but very forgettable, which was quite disappointing, in fact the most disappointing part of the movie. I actually remember the scenarios of the songs more, and not so much the songs themselves. As for the voice cast, they’re pretty good, with the returning voice actors with Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff, as well as some newer voice actors like Sterling K. Brown, Evan Rachel Wood, and more.

Frozen 2 is relatively good, but it does have some problems holding it back, same with the first movie. Frozen 1 was fairly simplistic, but for what it is, it worked. Frozen 2 has a more interesting story and does some surprising things that I really liked, but the results weren’t always consistent in quality. As for which is better, they sort of balance each other out, and they’re sort of on the same level. If you liked the first Frozen, then it’s definitely worth watching the sequel, otherwise you probably shouldn’t bother with Frozen 2.