In this movie, Nobita and Doraemon build an amusement park on an iceberg for their friends, but then discover a mysterious artifact from Antarctica. I have mixed feelings about this one. I found several story elements here to be odd: for example, Dorami makes a voiced cameo telling Doraemon that she's been fortune-telling and her readings indicate that he should stay away from ice, a prediction that Doraemon dismisses. Although intended as foreshadowing, I thought that this interaction was strange, because Dorami doesn't usually come across as the superstitious type. Even as a means of foreshadowing, the scene seemed unnecessary, because after all, the title of the movie already indicates that the protagonists will be visiting Antarctica, so ice being involved is a given.
Then there's the imposter situation that occurs partway through the adventure, in which a shapeshifting robot pretends to be Doraemon while leading the other main characters into an obvious death trap. Why there is a shapeshifting robot guarding the particular abandoned tower they're exploring is never explained, so the whole thing felt as though it were inserted just for the sake of creating a mid-story conflict. The imposter conundrum isn't resolved in a particularly clever or heartfelt way either; instead, Nobita "just knows" which one is the real Doraemon without much supporting evidence. I get that it is supposed to show the close bond between Nobita and Doraemon, but I would have preferred if this had been represented in a more subtle way-perhaps Nobita could have picked up on some telltale body language from the real Doraemon, for example. At the very least, the main characters could have tried quizzing the imposter on some harder questions than just Gian and Suneo's names.
On the bright side, some of the visuals in this film are really pretty. In addition, though most of the protagonists don't receive much characterization here, I thought that this was actually quite a good movie for Doraemon himself. Not only does he come up with a clever solution to help the others save himself when they get separated from each other in time (probably the best-executed subplot in this film), but he also plays a key role during the final battle. Furthermore, his gigantic, flying, ice-drilling vehicle might be one of the most impressive gadgets he's ever pulled straight from his pocket.
I also appreciated that there are a fair few references to Earth science in this film: Snowball Earth, the Cambrian explosion, and the history of Antarctic glaciation are all mentioned. (Just don't write down the part about aliens being the cause of Snowball Earth if you're taking an Earth science exam...) Something I'm surprised that this movie does not explicitly address, however, is anthropogenic climate change. Considering that the film begins with reports of record high temperatures in Tokyo, I was fully expecting that climate change would play some role in the plot, especially given that environmentalism is a recurring theme in Doraemon.
In fact, I even have to wonder whether this movie might give some young or impressionable viewers the wrong idea about ongoing climate change. The main threat in the story poses the risk of freezing the entire world, with similar entities having already frozen other planets, so when the protagonists' movie-exclusive allies are shown to have successfully melted the ice on their own home planet in the end, this is portrayed as a positive outcome (and in the context of the narrative, it certainly is one)... yet would this imply that the melting of polar ice in the real world is a good thing? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it seems to me that a plot emphasizing the importance of ice caps to maintaining current Earth systems would have been a more appropriate use of the setting and premise of this movie.
