Still Letting It Go

Conditions: Becalmed

Film Review: Frozen 2

Disney's big big hit of (checks notes) 6 years ago went on to inspire a generation of kids to let it go, trust yourself and all that jazz.  It ascended past being a mere film and became a calling, integrating itself into the zeitgeist.  So it's a bit weird Disney has taken it's sweet time in coming up with a sequel.  Is that because the first film was so important they wanted to make sure the sequel was ju.ff.....  No, can't complete that sentence without laughing, so maybe they had casting issues, or were simply too busy remaking everything under their sun.  Anyway, the followup is finally here.  Frozen 2 picks up the saga with the sisters happily continuing to be the leaders of their kingdom.  Anna's still delightfully ditzy and Elsa is all frozen-y.  But!  Elsa is starting to pick up a weird signal, that no one else can hear, that is coming from the great frozen North.  What is it?  A call for help?  A beacon?  Whatever it is, Elsa decides she has to go and find out, and Anna decides she has to go along.

This sets off some kind of weird disaster that causes the kingdom to experience terrible earthquakes.  Elsa commands the citizens must abandon the city to stay safe, while she and Anna will go north to find out what the hell is actually up.  The two, along with some other background characters, set off to the north, effectively abandoning their kingdom of Arendelle in the meantime.

The team end up discovering a whole new territory to the north, past the spooky fog banks, and that territory is occupied by another tribe and some abandoned soldiers from Arendelle. Turns out in the distant past, Arendelle sent soldiers to the north to negotiate a treaty and build a giant dam to hold back the mighty river, before everything went terribly wrong and the two sides fell into conflict.  Somehow that conflict still goes on, without anyone being hurt or anything.  Elsa and Anna will have to confront that legacy, as well as discover what happened to their parents, and try to make everything right again.

Most of the film is a bit flat, they're trying their best but this unknown trek to the north is a problem in that we don't really know where they're going or why.  It gets even worse when they eventually split up, despite Anna's protests.  Elsa confronts some kind of hall of spirits and gets dumped into a pit to freeze to death.  It's a bold choice, and Anna has to focus on destroying the dam (which is hurting the environment) even though that should destroy Arendelle.  But it's Disney, so it turns out to the the right thing after all.  Elsa is resurrected and released with the destruction of the dam, just in time to use her powers to stop the wall of dam water from destroying Arendelle.  So yay, the day is saved since somehow destroying the dam does not cause the water level to rise.  More than a little Disney magic going on here I think.  Oddly, Elsa then decides she will stay in the north and rule the northern tribe, and Anna will become the new queen of Arendelle.  This kind of comes out of nowhere, and sets up a new larger dynamic for the no doubt numerous sequels to come.  But for what it is, it's a perfectly fine film, and the various songs are ok.  But of course they don't have a showstopper as good as Let It Go.  Two sad deaths out of five.

- peace out