Movie Review: Moana 2

Moana 2 is an enjoyable but disappointing experience. The sequel to the 2016 Oscar-nominated film is bright and colorful, features nice moments of humor, and has a good lesson at its core but it lacks the first film’s emotional depth and catchy songs.

Moana 2 kicks off with our Polynesian heroine Moana (voiced by Auliʻi Cravalho), now her island’s greatest wayfinder and sea navigator, searching for other civilizations amongst the waters. When she finds a piece of pottery that shows there were once other people, she puts together a rag-tag group of islanders to help her search for them. While on her journey, Moana and her crew team up with the demigod Maui (voice by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) to defeat Nalo, a vicious storm god who controls the seas and the islands that inhabit it.

Moana 2 was originally supposed to be a limited series on Disney+ but following the critical and financial disappointment of 2023’s Wish, Disney decided to rework the series into a movie. I was enjoying the first act of the film. It set up the story well, showed the character’s growth, and established her surroundings while introducing us to new characters, and it set the stakes for the rest of the movie. It also highlighted the stunning animation and brightness of the film, an aspect that never went away. It never felt like this was once a TV show that had been chopped down and felt like we were in for an exciting adventure.

Unfortunately, after Moana and her crew leave her home island, the film starts to feel rushed and underdeveloped. There is very little depth to any of the characters, which ultimately leads to the film feeling stale. Each one of Moana’s crew members is given a basic attribute. There’s Loto (voiced by Rose Matafeo) a quirky master shipbuilder, Moni (voiced by Hualālai Chung) who is strong and a big fan of Maui, and Kele (voiced by David Fane) who is a grumpy farmer. That’s all we get to know about these characters. We learn nothing of their backstories and don’t get to know who they are, which makes it tough to connect with them beyond them being on a crew with Moana. Even Moana’s character arc is relatively thin, especially compared to the first film. And Maui felt like he was shoehorned into the movie to provide some comedic relief and use his powers when Moana is in trouble.

The plot zips by at a rapid pace and feels like it is more focused on moving to the next plot beat than focusing on the story of the characters and the theme of unity and finding your inner power. This is where the film really felt like it was a TV show spliced together to make a movie. It was like watching a summary of a series we missed every episode of.

And the biggest disappointment of all? The songs. There aren’t a lot of them and not one song in the entire movie is memorable. There isn’t one that comes close to “How Far I’ll Go” or even “You’re Welcome”, though Maui does have the most fun song in the film with “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” a toe-tapping, Lin Manuel Miranda-adjacent motivator that comes when all seems lost of Moana.

Moana 2 does have fun moments and the animation is spectacular, colorful, and bright, both of which will play well with younger viewers, but that’s it. The characters are too thin, the plot moves too fast, and the songs are forgettable. While not a bad film, Moana 2 is one of the biggest letdowns for me in 2024 simply due to how good the first film is and because Disney decided to turn a TV show into a movie and leave all emotion on the cutting room floor.

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