Jonah Naplan November 27, 2024
“Moana 2” is so forgettable that I’m going to remember it for years. Like all of the recent Disney animated movies that have been released over the Thanksgiving weekend—“Wish,” “Strange World,” “Encanto”—it’s another harmless addition to the lineup that will be great for families but won’t leave any lasting impact. It’s easily one of the legendary studio’s best-looking movies yet, and the colors on display are some of the most vibrant to grace the screen, but it’s an emotionally and narratively empty movie that doesn’t give the audience what they really want—the camaraderie between Moana and Maui that gave the first film its charm in 2016–until way past the midway point. Meanwhile, the new songs this musical sequel has to offer are mediocre at best and I’d be surprised if any of them become hits the same way that selections from the first “Moana” and “Frozen” have.
The movie opens three years after the last adventure. Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) has become a titular figure among her Motunui community as a “wayfinder,” and the legend of Maui (Dwayne Johnson) lives on. She sets sail on her canoe once again to search for the long-lost island of Motufetu, a mythical brotherland separated from Moana’s people generations ago by the curse of Nalo. It’s a dangerous journey, perhaps more perilous than the first, and this time she’s leaving behind not just her loving parents (Nicole Scherzinger and Temuera Morrison), but a little sister named Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) who’s Moana’s biggest fan. She’s accompanied by her pet pig Pua and rooster Heihei and a trio of temporarily amusing but ultimately forgettable crewmates—the reluctant Kele (David Fane), overly confident Loto (Rose Matafeo), and the eccentric Moni (Hualãlai Chung) who idolizes Maui in a pseudo-romantic way.
“Moana 2” is more of an echo of “Frozen II” than a rehash of its predecessor. Like that movie, it focuses on expanding the world that we’ve spent beloved years visiting and revisiting by opening up the door to possibilities of life “out there.” To that point, it does a commendable job of further developing Moana’s character as a heroine who learns to discover herself in the midst of discovering her brethren. Cravalho brings a maturity to her fine voice work that will continue to allow little girls to see themselves in her character, a fearless young woman determined to break the mold. If the first “Moana” forced the title character to share the spotlight with Maui, this one is strictly her movie. However, her newest power ballad “Beyond” attempts to bring the thunder that made songs like “How Far I’ll Go,” “Into the Unknown,” and “Let It Go” cinematic showstoppers, but it’s one of this film’s biggest shortcomings in trying to be truly impactful.
More about the songs: not a single one invents a catchy beat that sticks in the mind after watching. A lot of them seem to be the output of an artificial intelligence program that was fed Disney’s biggest hits and asked to compose four or five songs with the same general feel and tone. You could blame Lin-Manuel Miranda’s absence (say what you wish about him, but he sure knows how to write a tune) or you could argue that there’s really only so many songs to be written with the same prompt about dreams and finding your way, etc, but no matter how you look at it, even Disney adults will likely be uninspired by this film’s musical offerings.
The movie boasts a variety of setpieces such as another battle with the tribe of coconut warriors known as Kakamora and a run-in with a giant clam, and they’re all perfectly diverting enough without ever taking your breath away. Where the movie really stuns is in the animation department. This is one of the coolest looking movies I’ve seen on the big screen this year and it’s never once boring to look at. The motion of the water—which, indeed, acts as a crucial character in this franchise—is rendered with impressive detail, and the colors pop more vibrantly than they do in real life. It’s important that directors Dana Ledoux Miller, Jason Hand, and David Derrick Jr. dedicated so much time to the visual competency because it disguises how overtly one-dimensional the plot and stakes are. And Maui, the most lovable element of the first “Moana,” feels like an afterthought here, spending most of his scenes imprisoned by an evil witch named Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), a villain so insignificant that her brief screentime feels like merely a cameo.
So, why two-and-a-half stars, you might ask. Because the movie gets the job done. “Moana 2,” as with most other films in the Disney animation catalogue, can’t be bothered by what somebody like me has to say about it. Families will go to the theater to see it this weekend anyway and they’ll be distracted by its handful of pleasures enough to feel that their time has not been completely wasted. This is a harmless and virtually inoffensive movie with sincere intentions and a beating heart at its core. You won’t feel strongly about it either way. My advice only rocks a boat that would be better off getting beaten down by a large wave, if and only if one is imminent.
Now playing in theaters.