Frozen II

Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee give Frozen II a sensible reason to exist: the sisters still have things to learn about themselves and each other. We find it a decent, uneven return, with enough pleasure in the performances to carry us through a story that needs too much explaining. Elsa’s search for self-understanding gives Idina Menzel something worth singing about, while the attention to Anna keeps the film from becoming entirely absorbed in Elsa’s importance. The trouble is how often the adventure asks us to sort out its mythology before we can care about it.

Kristen Bell gives Anna a warmth that survives the busy plotting, and her relationship with Elsa supplies much of the feeling the larger story struggles to earn. Menzel’s singing makes uncertainty sound urgent, even when the writing has not made the next step particularly clear. Jonathan Groff brings an agreeable earnestness to Kristoff, and the kindness within his relationship with Anna matters. There is relief in a family adventure that allows supportiveness to count as a virtue without making the supportive character dull.

The music credited to Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez and Christophe Beck often does the work the dialogue cannot quite manage. ‘Into the Unknown’ gives Elsa’s restlessness a directness the surrounding explanations lack, though the score can make an uncertain dramatic moment sound more important than it feels. We laughed at Kristoff’s power-ballad number, which lets his earnestness become funny without treating him as a fool. Its cheerfully excessive scale is welcome in a film so concerned with explaining itself.

Olaf also helps. Josh Gad makes his worries about existence funny enough to forgive their tendency to interrupt the adventure. His uncertainty is easy to recognise, which is more than we can say for every problem the plot sets its characters. Yet the script, credited to Jennifer Lee and Allison Schroeder, leans on him whenever the heavier material needs lightening. Some comic interruptions arrive before the preceding emotion has had time to settle.

Production designers Michael Giaimo and Lisa Keene give the autumn setting a range of colours that keeps the scenery interesting even when the action stalls. That setting suits a story about people discovering that happiness will not stop things changing. The animation rewards attention, although we sometimes found ourselves studying the scenery because the characters’ predicament had failed to grip us. The images make the journey pleasant to watch without making every stretch of it necessary.

Jeff Draheim’s editing has to accommodate comedy, songs and a considerable amount of explanation, and the shifts between them do not always feel natural. The screenplay’s interest in historical wrongs is welcome; a family film can ask awkward questions without apologising for them. Here, though, the rules and history too often need more attention than the characters’ immediate wishes, and we spend too long understanding a predicament that should be making us anxious. There is a curious shortage of tension for an adventure with so much to discuss.

The familiar company and new songs are enough to justify an evening for those already attached to the sisters. The family-adventure basics are shakier: a clear goal and a felt sense of danger should not require this much explanation. At 103 minutes, it is not excessively long, but its wandering makes it feel longer than it should. Choose it for Anna, Elsa and the songs, provided a muddled story will not spoil the evening.