Frozen II | Movie Review
So, thank God for Disney+ because you get to stream basically everything with a Disney logo on it (and even ones without their logo).
I'm actually regretful now that I bought all of those Disney movies on Amazon Prime. I must have spent about $500 buying them on streaming videos and on DVDs. I'm definitely in buyer's remorse mode right now.
Frozen II was actually released on Disney+ three months ahead of its scheduled streaming date because of the coronavirus.
***SPOILER ALERT!!!***
The movie opens with Anna and Elsa as children, playing an imaginary game with Elsa's powers. Their father, King Agnarr, tells them a story from his childhood, about the Enchanted Forest.
The people of Arendelle went to the Enchanted Forest to form a friendship with the tribal community that lives there, the Northuldra people. King Runeard, Agnarr's father (Elsa and Anna's grandfather), presents them with a dam built in the Enchanted Forest as a bridge between the two citizens; but while Agnarr is distracted by the magic in the forest, a fight has broken out between the two communities.
King Runeard is killed, and Agnarr is saved by an unknown person. The four spirits (earth, water, fire, and air) are angered by what's happened and causes a mist to surround the forest, not letting anyone in or out.
Queen Iduna, Anna and Elsa's mother, finish tucking the girls in with a song from her childhood about a mystical place, Ahtohallan — which is supposed to hold all explanations about the past.
Queen Elsa has learned how to control her powers, all is going good in Arendelle; Kristoff is ready to propose to Anna, but can't seem to find the right way.
Elsa starts hearing a vocalize voice singing to her, and she doesn't know where it's coming from, but she ends up accidentally releasing the four spirits of the Enchanted Forest by saying their names aloud.
This causes the water inside of Arendelle to disappear, the fire to go out, a gushing wind rushing through Arendelle, and the ground to start rumbling.
The citizens all evacuate to the hills for safety.
Grand Pabbie, the leader of the trolls, tells Elsa about the dam and the Enchanted Forest. She decides to go there to find out what's happening. Sven, Kristoff, and Olaf decides to go with her. Grand Pabbie tells her he'll look after her people while they're gone.
Elsa's magic let's the group enter the forest, but afterwards they can't go out.
There, they encounter the wind spirit, which in its animated form is a cluster of breezy autumn leaves. They are also surrounded by the Northuldra tribe and the surviving Arendelle soldiers, who have been trapped there for 37 years. One of the soldiers was their father's personal guard, Lt. Matthias.
The fire spirit, in the form of a salamander, causes a forest fire, which Elsa puts out with her magic, and she's able to tame it.
Elsa and Anna realize that their mother was a Northuldra, and the person who rescued their father. Elsa also figures out that she has to go to Ahtohallan to find out about the past to get answers; and that the Northuldra people believe that there is a fifth spirit — the "bridge" between the spirits and the people.
They also discovered the sunken ship of their parents; and through a theory of Olaf's (that water retains memories), Elsa uses her magic to figure out what happened with their parents. Their parents were trying to get to Ahtohallan to find out the cause of Elsa's magic, but were overtaken by the rising water.
Using her magic, Elsa sets Olaf and Anna on an ice boat and floats them away so that she can get to Ahtohallan alone and find out what's going on. Anna and Olaf floats to safety inside of mountainous caves, while Elsa tries to reach Ahtohallan by beating the water spirit.
She's able to use her magic to maneuver around the tidal waves, and to rein the water spirit, whose shape is a horse. After she's tamed the water spirit, it takes her towards Ahtohallan — which is a glacier.
At Ahtohallan, Elsa discovers that her grandfather, King Runeard, betrayed the people of Northuldra by killing their leader, and that the dam was hurting the spirits in the forest. However, Elsa had jumped deep into the glacier to find out the truth about the wrongful past, and she ends up being frozen — but with her last breath, she sends her sister a sign.
At the cave, Anna and Olaf sees Elsa's sign — a snow sculpture of their grandfather raising his sword to strike an unarmed man from behind, who's kneeling with a bowl in his hand. Anna's able to decipher the image that their grandfather killed the leader of the Northuldra people, and that the dam wasn't a gift, but a trick. She realizes that she has to destroy the dam, and that's why the spirits had led the people of Arendelle to the safety of the hills.
Unfortunately, Olaf starts turning into snow flurries because Elsa is frozen, and basically the same as dead, so he evaporates into a pile of snow.
Anna gets the earth giants to throw boulders to break the dam; as soon as the dam breaks, the spirits are satisfied that the wrong has been righted, and Elsa is no longer frozen.
Since the dam has been destroyed, all of the water that it has been holding back starts gushing into a forceful tidal wave towards Arendelle, but Elsa is able to use her magic to block and reroute the tidal wave from hitting Arendelle, and to calm the remaining waves.
Kristoff is finally able to propose; Elsa realizes that she must remain in the Enchanted Forest as the fifth spirit to be the "bridge" between the spirits and the people; and Anna becomes queen of Arendelle. Olaf is revived by Elsa.
***END SPOILER***
This movie does not have a powerful pop ballad like "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" or "Let It Go". Elsa is way more badass in this movie, especially all the scenes where she uses her magic, and especially the scene where she's going up against the water to reach Ahtohallan.
The songs are cheesy and reminds me of YouTubers who make videos from scenes in Final Fantasy characters to some cover of a pop song. I'm glad that the girls' outfits change, and they both had new hairstyles too.
Overall, I love the current direction of Disney princesses — powerful and need no man to rescue them from anything. I personally believe it all started with Beauty and the Beast.
