The first Frozen movie was an absolute enigma to me. I remember not thinking that it looked that great when trailers were coming out, and so I thought it would be a skippable movie that would be easily forgotten. Then, it became one of the biggest hits that Disney has ever had, and the fandom surrounding it has been enormous. I eventually gave it a shot myself and was surprised when I absolutely loved it. It really is a great movie, and so I want this to be known before I give my surprisingly negative review of Frozen II. I want it to be known that I wasn’t one of the people that hopped on the Frozen hate train just because the movie became as popular as it did. I loved the movie, and so I was actually really looking forward to Frozen II. But unfortunately, it just wasn’t what I was hoping for.

The most striking thing about trailers for Frozen II was how different it looked than the first movie. The movie seemed to be taking a much darker, more serious, and epic tone than the first movie. This is only partially true, honestly. The movie does feature more fantastical elements in the magical realm, but it’s still very much in the same kind of tone as the first movie, so if you’re looking for that big step in a different direction, this isn’t it. Still, I will concede that this is much more fantasy-oriented, leading its main characters into new magical lands. The basic premise is just that Elsa starts hearing a voice calling out to her, and she goes out to find it, obviously with the help of Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven.

The thing that bothers me so much about Frozen II is that it’s such a frustrating movie to talk about. Despite the fact that I really didn’t enjoy it all that much, I can’t in good conscience say that it’s a bad movie. It’s not. Looking at the movie purely from a technical, “objective” standpoint, it’s actually a good movie. The animation is absolutely beautiful, the songs are all well-done and enjoyable, and there’s plenty of fun character moments for the beloved cast. It’s the kind of movie that checks all of the boxes that it needs to, and so it hits all of the right beats. This is why I can’t really call it a bad movie. This is a movie that I will not begrudge anyone for saying is good, because I can see why others might like it. It has all of the right elements of a good movie, it’s just the package as a whole that I’m not down with.

This is why it’s hard for me to give a good review of Frozen II. I’m very down on the movie, and I don’t have any solid reasons for that. It feels like I should be able to justify not liking the movie, but my criticism really doesn’t extend much beyond “it just wasn’t for me.” I don’t know how to explain it. Like I said, the movie hits all of the right beats, but I just felt like I was going through the motions to get to those beats. Sometimes a movie just doesn’t capture your attention, and that’s how I felt during this. I wanted to like it so much more than I did, and yet the movie rarely ever actually grabbed me and sucked me in. I can recognize that part of this might be due to external factors and subjective biases, though. My movie theater had very low sound on the movie for some reason, which didn’t mix well with the theater of loud and disruptive kids. This kind of created an irritating environment for me. I’ve also just personally been feeling franchise fatigue lately. I feel like the majority of movies I see in theaters anymore are just sequels are entries in a franchise, and it’s been poisoning my enjoyment of them a bit. It’s possible that if I saw Frozen II at a different theater and at a different time in my life, I may have enjoyed it more. But I do also think that the movie just failed to capture my enjoyment.

I think the most disappointing thing about Frozen II for me is that I expected more out of it. One of the reasons I was so interested in seeing the movie is because of how unique and different it looked from the first movie. It felt like a movie that was going to take a lot of risks, and so it just ended up being disappointing how this movie feels like barely anything more than a generic Disney sequel.

Despite how negative I sound, I do encourage people to go and watch this one themselves if they’re interested in it. Given how the majority of my criticism of the movie is just simply “it wasn’t for me,” I do think other people will enjoy the movie. It has a high score for both critics and audiences right now, so I recognize that I’m in the minority here. I can accept people liking it because, like I said, from a more “objective” lens I do actually think this is a good movie. There were times that I did enjoy it for sure, and so I don’t think it’s terrible by any means. I just felt so neutral about the movie the whole time, and I think that’s why I feel let down. Take my review with a grain of salt, though, because you may enjoy it a lot more than I did.

3/5