Film Review - "Moana 2"

Back in the early nineties, Disney began production on a television series that would be a follow-up to their film Aladdin. The premiere of the series was going to be an hour-long special, as was common for many Disney animated series, but along the way gears were shifted and the first four (five?) episodes were strung together as a "feature-film". 

This would become The Return of Jafar, the first of (unfortunately) many direct-to-video Disney sequels. The film was not well-received by critics, but easily made back its small budget and became one of the best-selling home-video releases of all time.

Thirty years or so later, history has repeated itself...

Moana 2

Directed by David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller

Starring Auli'i Cravallho and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

The follow-up to 2016's Moana was initially planned as a series on Disney Plus, but then the world was surprised to find out in February of 2024 that the series had be reworked into a feature-film and that it was due for theatrical release last November, only nine months after the first teaser dropped. 

Critics were lukewarm on the final product, but Moana 2 would go on to become the fourth highest-grossing film of 2024, remaining number one at the box office for nearly a month, and smashing all sorts of records, including doubling Frozen 2's opening weekend numbers. History really does repeat itself.

Some of the more cynical critics and content creators will tell you Moana 2 is another sign of Disney's downfall, a disgrace to the brand, you know how it goes...I'm not one of them. While it doesn't reach the heights of the original, I enjoyed the film, and it doesn't (totally) feel like it was a miniseries that was reworked in the eleventh hour. I will explain...

Moana (Cravallho) now spends her days exploring the waters beyond Motunui in search of other tribes but to no avail. A vision from her ancestors say this is because the storm god Nalo once sank the island Motufetu which connected all the islands in the ocean (Like Yggdrasil The World Tree for you Norse mythology fans). Moana must embark on a deadly quest to raise the island, to reconnect the people of the ocean, and save her tribe from eventual extinction.

At its basic core, the story is pretty much following the same map as the original i.e. Moana going out on a daring voyage to a legendary island to "save the world" but the film progresses the story to a natural place. Moana is now Motunui's lead voyager. The first film was about her reconnecting her people with the ocean, now it's about her reconnecting everyone in the ocean. 

There was only one particular sequence in the film that I could identify as "an episode" of what was once the miniseries, but on future rewatches maybe others will become clearer. One returning character's role definitely seemed like it was cut down to save time, or maybe that's just the impression the editing on their first scene left. Regardless, everything flows pretty naturally from beginning to end. The climax is particularly thrilling and certainly gave the film a boost of adrenaline in its final moments, however a couple of cliche' moments sort of weighed it down (avoiding spoilers).

The film's greatest weakness is its new characters, who all are very one-note and don't offer very much to the plot. Moana's crew contains Lolo (Rose Matafeo), an eccentric inventor, Moni (Hualālai Chung) a fanboy of Maui, and Keke (David Fane), a grumpy farmer. That's pretty much all there is to these characters. I cannot think of anything significant any of them contributed. Then there's also Matangi (Awhimai Fraser) who is Nalo's enforcer and a demigod who controls bats. The first half of the film spends time setting her up like she will be a big player later on, but that never turns out to be the case (aside from singing the best song of the film). I hate to say it, but I feel like in what was once the miniseries, each of these characters were given their due.

The animation, despite not being produced in house at Disney (It was done at the Vancouver Studio) is very gorgeous. While it may not dazzle or break ground like the animation in the original, it still reaches the Disney standard. The water effects are still beautiful and make me wish I lived on an island and had a boat. 

Everybody has made some sort of joke or comment about what the loss of Lin-Manuel Miranda has done to this film and its music. First of all, Mark Mancia and Opetaia Foa'i returned to do the score so there's that. Second, I thought the songs were just fine. Again, Matangi's song, "Get Lost" is the best song of the film and I was playing it on loop on the car ride home from the theater. Maui's new song "Can I Get A Chee Hoo?" is a fun "pump-up" song but man, it sounds kind of similar to The Rock's "Its about drive, it's about power" rap in places and that's funny to me. I concede that you can't Out-Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda but these new songs by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear get the job done.

I don't have much to say about the voice acting. Auli'i Cravallho is still an international treasure and crushes every second of playing Moana. I will die on the hill that Maui is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's best role. He has some really good moments in this film, but I still say his performance in the original is better. Everyone else is fine, but again, there characters really didn't have much to do or leave much of an impression.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the editing room, or at the very least in the meeting where they decided the miniseries was going to be retrofitted into a sequel. We may never know what really went down, but if they could give us a whole miniseries showing the behind the scenes of Frozen 2 (Streaming on Disney Plus and a worthwhile watch) I suppose anything's possible. Moana 2 is no The Return of Jafar. While it may not reach the grand heights of the original, it is a very enjoyable film that easily surprises many of Disney's direct-to-video sequels (and Ralph Breaks The Internet I'm not afraid to say it). 

It's still playing in theaters because it made all the money (and January is a crapshoot for films) but you probably wouldn't be missing out too much if you waited to watch it on Disney Plus (as God intended?).

Anyway, tune in next time when I tell you about a sequel I really did not like...or I finally do my Top 10 Lists of 2022, 2023, and now 2024. I don't know. We'll see what happens...

...Damn I didn't even touch on the fact Moana has a little sister now....She has a little sister now...cool.