Moana 2 Movie Review - S.O.S.

So…Disney sequels. It’s quite the rage these days. Especially since the arbiter of ineptitude (whose name isn’t Roger Goddell or David Zaslav) that we know as Bob Iger and company have declared that since their original content has been struggling at the box office that they would have to lean more into sequels for their already established IPs. Well, if their films were written with consistency and the company didn’t try to run themselves to the ground with their politically misguided and idiotic business practices, maybe they wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in currently. It’s disheartening to see one of the champion purveyors of animated quality run out of ideas to a degree they would vomit out one unnecessary installment after another. Regardless, the likes of “Frozen III”, “Toy Story 5” and “Zootopia 2”—which will flood theaters with furries and Disnoids— have been announced, and given their predecessors made over a billion dollars, we’ll have to wait and see if not only their strategy works, but if their storytelling will stand the test of time alongside the classics of old.

One of those movies that ended up getting a sequel is “Moana”, a film that is among the most popular movies in the modern Walt Disney Animated Studios’ catalog directed by celebrated Disney storytellers, John Musker and Ron Clements (the duo known for “Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid”). I don’t know if it holds up years later, but last time I recall, I remember it being a terrific animated musical about a chief’s daughter going on an oceanic quest with a demigod voiced by The Rock to restore her people’s decaying island. Like many Disney musicals, it had beautiful animation, a number of memorable songs and had a remarkable female lead who stood out among the roster of Disney female characters. Apart from the unnecessary sequels itemized previously, I was one of the few people who thought Moana deserved a sequel, considering how the original ended with Moana solidifying herself as Motunui’s reliable way-finder and sailing through the seven seas navigating for clans and islands to ally with. What journeys await our moviegoers and characters next?

This leads us to Moana 2, and to answer that question, the journey that awaits us has nothing to do with the actual plot. It has everything to do with sitting through a jumbled, banal, hour and forty-minute bore. I mean, Disney, I understand that Moana was successful and it’s also getting a live-action remake despite being not even a decade old, but this was the movie you’d made that millions (and millions) of fans were anticipating? And here I thought this would be in competition with “The Wild Robot”…the heck was I thinking?

As for our central plot, Moana has made a staggering discovery on a deserted island close to home. Based upon an artifact she came across, this leaves her to believe that back in the day, the ocean was connected by the mythical island, Motufetu, allowing clans of different cultures and ethnicities to unite. One night, she receives a vision after almost getting struck by lightning, that one of her ancestors warned her that Nalo, a colossal nefarious, storm god wanted power over the mortals, and did so by submerging the legendary island into the depths below, and if she were to fail to break the curse, her clan would go extinct. So yeah, if she were to be struck by lightning, she would’ve straight up died and we wouldn’t have ourselves a movie. So with the assistance of one-dimensional archetypes disguised as characters — Oh! And the demigod Maui from the last movie — can Moana set things right and unite the islands once more?

Before I point out one of the problems of this film, first some exposition. Before Moana 2 was announced, creative director Jennifer Lee way back when, proposed the idea of a “Moana” musical adventure series. I thought, well, a sequel would’ve been nice, but a Disney TV series is solid nonetheless, after all there have been many, including myself, who grew up with movie-based television shows by Disney like Lilo & Stitch. But then Billionaire Bob decided to hone in on sequels to established properties in early 2024, and despite being months into production with David Derrick Jr. already announced as director, the plans for a series were scrapped for the sake of producing a sequel. As you experience the film, the narrative comes across as if the filmmakers compressed plot-lines, characters and set pieces from a few unfinished episodes and shoved them all into the story in order to extend the film to the average 100 minute running time. From several set-pieces of our characters encountering Kakamora once again, to a sea serpent ambush, an adventure inside the belly, it all feels like set pieces that could’ve been a part of something better. Instead, it’s all played out as a convenience to advance the plot, thus dragging the pacing and leaving others, including myself, bored listless.

Another example was one teased in the trailers, but turns out that its inclusion and execution was utterly pointless. The movie introduces this villain, Matangi, Nalo’s enforcer who commands a colony of bats, who resides in her lair inside a giant Godzilla side clam. She captures and prevents Maui from accessing a portal to Nalo’s realm to resurrect Motufetu himself, because they had beef with him in the past and he feels confident to do it on his own while fearing Moana wouldn’t survive if she came along with him. Once Moana and her sea-mates enter the belly of the clam, they get separated leaving Moana to come across Matangi. After a musical number, she unveils that she doesn’t like being under Nalo’s wing and offers to help our heroes and never shows up in the film again…what absolute waste of potential. Instead of having this character be someone to be an opposing force to her morals and understandings, , she was there to bait-and-switch the audience into thinking she was going to take part as one of the film’s evildoers, but after just being on-screen for several minutes, it turns out she’s not such a bad guy and ends up showing the gang the way to their destination.

Instead we have to have a harrowing, titanic thunder god as our main antagonist and you might as well characterize him in a single word. Evil. He wants power over humanity and buries a clan-connecting island separating walks of life to collaborate because…evil. Nalo never comes face to face with our heroine in person nor does he share his perspective. He only shows up as a monstrous storm and disappears once he’s been conquered. That’s not all! The film has the audacity to tease his character for future sequels. Yay, I can't wait to see this boring villain get bested again in Moana 3. Why can’t we just have sadistically charming, threatening, irredeemable villains again? Remember when we had Hades, Ursula and Maleficent? Unfortunately, Disney doesn’t have the creative impetus to manifest an iconic villain anymore.

Of course, an integral component to the film is our leading lady. Again, Auli’i Cravalho shines bright as Moana and as usual recaptures the chemistry she and The Rock had back in 2016 (who’s equally as charming as he was before). As far as character growth, she hardly has any development throughout the movie. She ends her character the same way she began, she doesn’t learn anything of value that she hasn’t experienced already from the original, effectively retracing her steps and repeating what she’s done before.

And when I say that Moana’s side characters are all one-dimensional archetypes, I do mean that they’re all one-dimensional archetypes. You have the boat-engineer chick who knows a lot about customization, yet all she does is break things and make things difficult for Moana to command or steer, there’s the elder farmer, who I guess is there to provide food rations, but, kinda doesn’t do anything of value to the team, and then finally, there’s the Maui fanboy who has most character out of all them (sort of), They’re cliched to the very bone; stock adventure companions that share as a combination of tiresome comedic relief and complete uselessness to the story and or stupidity to contrive the story.

Oh yeah, in terms of comedic timing and execution of the punchlines, nothing in this movie is funny, except for one joke that made me smirk…and it’s probably the funniest joke in the movie. Wanna hear it? I’ll tell you, anyway. The elder of the shipmates, the farmer who's named Kele says to Maui he looks like a kidney stone. Then, Maui turns to him and says, “And you look like someone who would know what that is.” There. That’s the funniest joke in the film. You didn’t have to watch the movie. I just saved you some money. Now, do yourself a favor, and buy the Blu-ray copy of “The Wild Robot” instead. It’ll be well spent.

But what about those musical numbers? What about them? Okay, to give the devil his due, there is one musical number from Dwayne Johnson, where Maui tries to inspire and train Moana through a hardcore training sequence that is visually and lyrically the most creative of them all. Unfortunately, many of the songs are generic, below-par songs that don’t hold a candle to the original’s memorable tracks as they all attempt and fail to replicate Lin Manuel-Miranda’s hip-hop and theatric musical style.

But hey, the animation’s still good by modern Disney standards…so there’s that I guess.

So yeah, Moana 2 is a bad sequel. It’s the kind of sequel that should’ve been sent straight to streaming or DVD along with the likes of “Pocahontas II” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame II,” but then decided “Eh, let’s release this waste of celluloid into theaters. Nobody will mind.” I wouldn’t say it’s worse than a project like “Wish”, but it’s a film that will test your patience, that’ll do nothing but bore you to tears and make you nod off before you can even reach the last 30 minutes, and it’s kind of upsetting having to say that about an animated Disney flick.

RATING: 1/5