Frozen II

Well, this was a definite crowd-pleaser...for children. It was blatantly engineered as a child-pleasing, money-grabbing sequel that lacked originality in terms of both story lines and animation quality.

The singularly best thing about Frozen II was Idina Menzel's singing, but even the songs this time round lacked the catchiness and showtune-ness of the original (the end-credits, pop-cover versions sounded like it would have fit right in to the film). 

On its own, it was a pleasant enough film with some action, some laughs and some drama; but as a follow-up to one of the biggest and creatively original animation, this was a let down. It was unexciting with a simple, predictable plot that was shoe-horned into this premise, the comedy was juvenile as was the drama.

Sure, it was good to teach children about respecting the environment and the rights of the indigenous people, and hopefully this was what the tykes got after watching it, but not sure if the message was strong enough to get through given that their messaging was less explicit than the girl-power theme of the last film.

Character-wise, none of our main cast had any real character growth or development which was a key feature in the first film and common in these animated sequels barring Pixar's Incredibles 2 and the Toy Story franchise (though Toy Story 4 was already showing fatigue but more likely than not might still get the Best Oscar over Frozen II).

The voice-cast was great still and of the newbies, Sterling K Brown stool out. Evan Rachel Wood got to sing which was always nice, but really inconsequential. Was the only reason for casting her because she was a named-star that could sing? Perhaps, pitting a broadway songstress against Menzel would have been more impactful for the climatic song.

Speaking of songs, I wonder which Menzel tune will get the Best Original Song nomination? I doubt the other new songs have a chance, although Jonathan Groff's power-ballad was a fun interlude on screen (the Wheezer cover - without the animation - showed its blandness).

Just a thought: they should really get Panic! at the Disco to duet with Menzel if Into the Unknown gets nominated!

This film was squarely aimed at children and their parents' money and Disney was unabashed about it. So bring the children and give Disney more money, they will surely enjoy themselves. Parents, stay home and watch The Mandalorian and wait for Christmas for the "final" Star Wars (still giving money to Disney).