Having been so successfully welcomed back to the jungle in Jack Kasdan’s 2017 Jumanji revival, audiences must surely have higher expectations for the director’s second stab. Lower them. Not by much but enough for some due tempering. The Next Level has its moments but fewer laughs, less momentum and a noticeably longer runtime – an admittedly harsh critique of four additional minutes. An improved second half ramps things up towards an enjoyable finale, promising at least one more sequel, but the weight of familiarity teeters of contempt when things drag prior.
The last time Disney’s animation studios were on form as fine as they have been in recent years, back in those Renaissance days of the nineties, a sequel to a hit like Frozen would have landed direct to DVD, latterly destined for some bargain bucket. While, these days, the equivalent might be direct to streaming, such was the global impact of Frozen that only a big screen return will do. Praise be for that. Whatever your expectations, Frozen II exceeds them. This is a fabulously matured, wry and beautifully rendered sequel from a production team whose care for their characters is evident in every millisecond of the final piece. A triumph worthy of that rare group of sequels to improve on prior instalments.
‘Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.’ So wrote Charlie Chaplin, some two decades after his Great Dictator tickled the war torn millions of Europe and America. A further half century on, it’s hard to imagine that Taika Waititi will ever decree regret for Jojo Rabbit. If anything, the New Zealander is more likely to wind up wishing this deliriously flippant, self-proclaimed ‘anti-hate satire’ were more politically incorrect. And yet, if the brio of the film’s first half proves unsustainable across Waititi’s full script, such a decline barely detracts from the funniest film of the year bar none.
The Film Blog 