Frozen II

THE GIST: All seems good in the kingdom of Arendelle except that Queen Elsa has started hearing a singing voice and it worries her. When the kingdom is seemingly attacked by the elements of nature, Elsa, together with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven, decides to follow the voice in hopes of clues on how to save her kingdom and restore balance to nature.

Following the colossal success of the first Frozen movie, a sequel was all but assured. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the original because it felt fresh and magical, I found the sequel dull and uninspiring.

Frankly, the whole premise behind this film -- that there's a fifth element besides earth, air, water, and fire -- felt contrived; as if the writers couldn't come up with anything better, and therefore settled on this.

That same premise required not only the creation of a new element (which isn't even an element per se), but also of a whole new tribe long lost and forgotten. Now, there's nothing wrong with making stuff up when creating animated movies (they're all based on fantasy anyway), but these plot points felt too forced and artificial for me.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Frozen II will certainly delight the little ones or any Elsa and Anna's uber-fans, but it left me cold -- pun not intended.

Grade: 5