In Review: 'Moana 2'
A terrific Disney film gets a less-than-terrific sequel.
Moana 2
Dir. David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller
100 min.
Moana 2 is a sequel to the animated 2016 film Moana. It is not the forthcoming film Moana, which is a live-action remake of the original Moana. Nor should it be confused with any further animated sequels suggested by the doors left open at the end of Moana 2. Got it? Nor, for that matter, should it be mistaken for the original Moana, a terrific animated musical with a winning heroine, a fun supporting performance by Dwayne Johnson as the demigod, Maui, remarkable animation, a compelling story, and first-rate songs. Moana 2 has some of the above, but they’re not enough to make the film feel fresh, or even necessary. It plays like Frozen 2, a perfectly OK movie willed into existence more by market forces than by a need to explore further the world of the original or spend more time with the characters who live there. Is there any milk left in the coconut? Don’t let it go to waste.
Auliʻi Cravalho returns as the voice of Moana who, in the time since the events of the previous film, has lost none of her wanderlust. If anything, it’s only intensified. With little to show for it, Moana has started exploring nearby islands for signs of life beyond her own. Refusing to be dissuaded, she gathers a band of adventurers to push her explorations even further while, elsewhere, Maui runs into some problems of his own, most of them tied to Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), a being aided by her close relationship with bats.
Moana 2 began its existence as an animated TV series and though the striking animation doesn’t suggest this, it’s evident in the thin plotting and, especially, it’s mostly unmemorable, occasionally poor songs, some in the style of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s contributions to the original but without his trademark verbal wit and hooks. (Johnson does his best with a song built around the couplet “go on-a / Moana.”) The original was one of the best Disney animated features of the ‘10s, a decade that included Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, Frozen, and Tangled. Its sequel feels like the first new product off the Moana assembly line: well-assembled, familiar, and built to last until the next model is ready. —Keith Phipps
Moana 2 is in theaters today.
Ugh I used to agree with you but then I had daughters and now I can tell you there is absolutely a reason for sequels such as these to exist. Little kids don’t care overmuch about the exigency of a story. They just want to spend more time with their favorite characters.
So while *I* might find FROZEN II’s storytelling truly bad and its ham-handed Native-Americans-In-Scandinavia messaging embarrassing, but they’re all over it! And so we’ve got our Moana 2 tickets and I am prepared to be mildly entertained
My 5 year old daughter also thought it sucked. Big fan of the first one, saw her disappointment slowly sink in. It just didnt make any sense. We walked out.