Disney’s animated sequel to Moana brings incredible animation and some solid songs along with a disjointed story that’s hard to latch onto.
Moana 2
Directed By: Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller, David G. Derrick Jr.
Written By: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller
Starring: Auli‘i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualālai Chung, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Temuera Morrison
Release Date: November 27, 2024
After eight long years, Moana is finally back on the big screen with an all new adventure, with all new friends, and, of course, some familiar faces. The first film remains among many people’s favorites of the modern Disney era, even already landing a live-action adaptation that’s currently filming. The titular heroine stole a lot of hearts through her courage, vulnerability, and general tenacity. As such, plenty of people (myself included) have been eager to see her back for more.
Moana 2 works. For the most part. I guess I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way: I think it’ll be very successful, and is a fun family film. You can definitely see where it had potential for much more…
The story is relatively straightforward. Years after restoring the Heart of Te Fiti, an older Moana has settled into her life as a wayfinder. Despite regularly wandering the oceans, Moana has yet to find people other than on her own island. Turns out there’s a reason for that. An angry, greedy, god hid away a key island that helped connect the oceans (and people) to one another in order to gain more power.
Given a vision of her people’s fate if they cannot find others, Moana must set off to find an island no one living has ever seen, in order to break the gods’ curse. Of course, she’ll also need the help of the demi-god Maui, but the more perilous journey also requires her to bring along an actual crew cobbled together from her fellow villagers. With friends old and new, Moana sets out on uncharted waters to face deadly new enemies and a literal god in order to secure a future for her people.
It’s pretty epic in its scale, as Moana is dealing with, literally, world-ending stuff. The problem is it might be too big of a story for the time given, and characters involved.
What Works
I like to stay positive, so before diving into some of my issues, I want to take time to highlight the things I really enjoyed in Moana 2. Because what it gets right, it gets right.
Animation – The first Moana was a stunning film, and the sequel manages to take things even further. Given the progress made in technology/animation in the past eight years, that shouldn’t be surprising. Even with that in consideration, however, Moana 2 manages to be jaw-droppingly gorgeous. From the vivid colors, the polished feel to the overall style being used, and the depth of detail on everything from grains of sand to wisps of hair, it’s hard to not be impressed. Honestly, I’m eager to get this on my 4K screen at home.
The Songs – This might not go for everyone, but I really dug the new songs, and Auli’i Cravalho continues to bring the heat with them. While I’m not entirely convinced any of them will reach the same heights/level of appeal as the first film’s “How Far I’ll Go,” they’re all catchy in their own way. I’ll put it this way, where the first film’s songs had to grow on me (except for the aforementioned banger), the songs in Moana 2 had me humming and bouncing along as they came.
Cultural Presentation – One of the things I loved most about Moana, is how unapologetic it was/is in presenting the culture. Unafraid to feature dialog and music in a foreign language, without translating, the cultural elements are presented as a fact of life that have to be accepted to understand these characters and their drive.
Moana 2 continues this concept, adding in even more elements of their history/lore along with more ceremony and tradition. Again, it’s all presented matter of factly, often just in the background or made in off-hand comments. These serve enhance the overall world-building while spotlighting the importance of culture on how people develop. It’s a big reason the first act of the film is so effective and offers some of the most emotionally engaging moments.
The Theme – Moana is all about embracing the unknown and taking chances. Doing something scary not only because it has to be done, but in order to see “how far you’ll go.” Moana 2 manages to expand on that, by forcing its titular character into circumstances where she cannot rely only on the skills she’s mastered.
As one of the key songs aptly says, she’ll have to “go beyond,” and I think that’s a powerful message for kids (and adults) to see. Much like life, when you accomplish one task, one goal, you’ll find another waiting for you. You can’t give up or get discouraged at setbacks. To be the person you’re meant to be, the person you want to be, you have to shake-off stagnation and keep pushing beyond.
The Humor – Moana 2 is pretty damn funny. There were a number of moments that had the whole theater in stitches, though some of the more self-referential jokes were only caught by some of the older audiences. Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson play wonderfully off one another, making smaller jokes (that shouldn’t work) more endearing.
Big for It’s Britches
Where Moana 2 struggles, is the story department. For those who may not know (or remember), the sequel was originally built as an animated series for Disney+ before being converted into a full fledged sequel movie…And that’s pretty much exactly how it feels. The story feels disjointed, and you can clearly see how certain sequences would have played out in a full episode before being condensed.
The newer characters brought into the story, who would ostensibly be co-leads in a longer series, feel like little more than background characters. They aren’t fleshed out enough to feel any sort of attachment to, thus making the stakes feel lower. Worse, there are times when they feel genuinely distracting during pivotal character moments when you suddenly remember they exist.
There are also a number of plot points (including one whole prominent character I won’t spoil) that are dropped almost as fast as they pop up; with one seemingly important resolution relegated to a mid-credits scene for some reason. Again, it’s obvious these are things that would have been expanded upon with the run-time allowed in a series.
The result is a film with a story that feels way too big for the time it has. Rather than increasing the stakes thanks to new characters and dangers, compressing the story into a film has the opposite effect. Becoming a more, by-the-numbers Disney sequel, than something fresh.
Which is wild. For all the film talks about “going beyond” and taking risks order to accomplish your dreams/destiny (seriously, it’s a key song!), the story itself plays it about as safe as it can get. Generally speaking, this wouldn’t be a bad thing if the stakes had more time to build up. Compressing the story meant for a longer format means those moments of doubt, those times when it seems like not everyone is going to make it through to the end of the journey, are over just as you start to feel engaged with them.
As such, you never get the sense of tension or, subsequently, the triumph of overcoming impossible odds. Instead, it plays out exactly as you’d imagine. That doesn’t mean the ride itself isn’t enjoyable, but you can see the potential it leaves behind.
