Frozen II was arguably the most anticipated movie of the year. Ever since Anna and Elsa’s first appearance on screen in 2013, audiences everywhere, and avid fans of “Let it Go”, wanted to see more of their adventures. 

For my first viewing of the film, I went with an eager group of friends excited to see what the Frozen gang were up to and we did get to see a fun adventure, but it wasn’t everything avid fans were expected. 

In regular Disney fashion, the animation was beautiful to watch and exceedingly better than the first movie. Anytime Elsa used her magic looked stunning and the new world of the enchanted forest was very impressive. 

The best part of the movie is it’s characters when we get to see them. We see plenty of Anna in this movie and even more of fan favorite Elsa than in the first. Though other characters such as Kristoff and Olaf are mostly written out of the latter half of the movie. 

Kristoff also has a side plot of trying to propose to Anna who keeps getting distracted by Elsa, but when Anna leaves Kristoff behind to follow Elsa, this plot is mostly forgotten about until he proposes in the last ten minutes of the movie. 

The soundtrack for the movie isn’t awful, but it isn’t as memorable as the first movie. The “Let It Go” of this movie was “Show Yourself”, which was surprisingly better than “Let It Go”. However, other songs such as “The Next Right Thing” were nice in the moment, but don’t warrant another listen. 

The most memorable song would no doubt go to Johnathan Groff’s “Lost In The Woods” where he has a chorus of singing reindeer who he also voices. It is by far the most confusing scene in the movie and the images of singing reindeer still haunted me throughout the rest of the movie. 

The actual story has a great set up. Anna and Elsa’s father, King Agnarr tells the young princesses how he visited an enchanted forest in his youth when the forest inhabitants, the Northaldra tribe, suddenly attack. We later learn that the unknown Northaldran who saved Agnarr is Iduna, Anna and Elsa’s mother. 

While in the enchanted forest, Anna and Elsa learn that their grandfather planned to kill the Northaldra tribe which caused the forest to become cursed. It’s up to them now to lift the curse. 

As good as the plot sounds on paper, is executed halfheartedly. Elsa’s call to adventure is carried out in the song “Into The Unknown” which is just a passable song at best. The new characters aren’t fleshed out at all and are almost forgotten until the end of the movie. 

The worst part about this movie was how confusing it was. The group I went with was constantly baffled by how Queen Iduna was singing to Elsa, what the mythical land of Ahtohallan is, and why Olaf had an Infinity War style death. All these uncertainties made me feel like things were just happening instead of the writers trying to tell a cohesive story. 

Even with this confusion though, it was exciting to see Elsa learn the truth of the past and watch Anna save the day in a dramatic climax. 

In all, I did have an enjoyable experience watching the film. Watching Anna and Elsa on the big screen again was fantastic even though the movie overall was average. Whatever your opinion on the first movie, Frozen II is definitely worth a watch.