Two stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.22.19
I want to know what this film’s writers were smoking.
Granted, this sequel to 2013’s Frozen has its moments, almost exclusively those involving Josh Gad’s hilarious supporting performance as the relentlessly loquacious snowman, Olaf.
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| Having just penetrated the strange mist that conceals an enchanted forest, Elsa (foreground) continues to hear a mysterious voice, although her companions — from left, Sven, Olaf, Kristoff and Anna — do not. |
The rest, however, is a mess.
Folks with a chronic aversion to musicals — and their numbers are legion — generally don’t shun classics such asThe Wizard of Oz, Singing in the Rain or West Side Story, or later genre refinements such as Cabaret and La La Land. No, such folks hate bad musicals: 1969’s Paint Your Wagon, 1975’s At Long Last Love, 1982’s Grease 2 and many others too numerous to mention.
Musicals with wafer-thin stories that usually make no sense, and which are interrupted constantly when the orchestra swells, an actor or two pauses in mid-sentence, stares heavenward, and we recoil with a sotto voce “Oh, gawd; they’re gonna sing again.”
Musicals with truly atrocious songs, not one of which is memorable enough to linger beyond the end credits.
Frozen II is a bad musical. A very bad musical, with genuinely awful, unmelodic and instantly forgotten tunes. Some of which are heard (endured?) more than once.
Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez clearly felt they had to match the success of “Let It Go,” their inspirational, Academy Award-winning ballad from the first film. Ergo, most of these seven new tunes are similarly overcooked and overwrought power anthems, not one of which comes within shouting distance of “Let It Go.” The absence of musical variety — particularly during the film’s second half — becomes unbearable.
You could hear the clanking of eyeballs rolling in their sockets, during Monday evening’s preview screening, each time viewers muttered, “Oh, gawd; she’s gonna sing again.”
There’s such a thing as trying too hard.
