Get ready to sail once more with Disney’s return of Moana 2! A film that only recently shot up on my radar, as I had no idea that Moana was even getting a sequel!!
The movie starts with Moana receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors. She must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.
I feel as though some films don’t warrant a sequel, and I feel confident in saying that Moana is firmly in the mix of films that didn’t need a sequel, but with Disney films like Frozen II out there scooping up billions at the box office I can see why these films are greenlit.
Moana 2, sadly, feels like a dip in quality in terms of storytelling because we’ve been here before. There’s nothing new or boundary-pushing that helps the story, as it plays far too close to the original for it to become anything new, standout, or exciting. It very much feels like one of those holiday spin-off movies that you get on Disney+ at Christmas time that simply leans into a new narrative but never strays too far from the original film it came from. This is where Moana 2 stumbles compared to Frozen 2. Frozen had legs within its story to branch out, whereas Moana sadly doesn’t have that.
From the beginning, we’re told almost everything we need to know within the first 20 minutes of the movie, but we have a few new catchy numbers to keep us entertained throughout and once again, the songs just aren’t as catchy or as re-listenable as the original. That’s simply because the bar was set too high with Moana. I think that is because songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t return for the sequel, and it shows. But the songs are still enough to get you by and, despite it not living up to the original, it’s still fun.
I feel as though to combat the lack of a narrative-driven story we’re throwing up a whole host of new characters in a desperate pick-and-mix attempt to get fans to connect with every one of them to drive merchandise sales and some sort of angle to keep the Disney train churning. They’re one-dimensional characters, and you can’t invest in anyone else new on-screen except Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuada), who is Moana’s little sister who is the exact character mentioned above that fans will love. I have been seeing on TikTok how all the little girls are obsessed with her.
Even though Moana 2 was a hit to some people, I am going to have to say that I would not go out of my way to watch it again. It just didn’t live up to the first Moana, the bar was set too high.
