Moana 2 Review!

Alright! It is 2024. In a state of disorganized panic, Disney needs a sure-fire hit to try and make back some of the hundreds of millions of dollar they lost on Wish and Strange World. Could it be that we can turn a rinky-dink Disney+ series about Moana into a theatrical hit that makes a billion dollars? The answer is yes. 

This is the question Moana 2, or, rather, the Disney studio executives, begged to ask in February 2024 when they announced Moana 2 for a November release (Which is unheard of for an animated film). The result is what you'd expect - a movie that truly feels like a mediocre Disney+ series reworked into a theatrical release. And it's.... It's pretty bad. It's really bad, actually. And very lazy. And it represents everything I don't like about Disney at the moment. 

Which is so sad! The first Moana is one of the all-time Disney greats! The animation, the humor, the music, the lead - everything about it was so highly acclaimed! And now we have the inevitable Disney sequel - but think more Cinderella 2 and Mulan 2 than Ralph Breaks the Internet. Y'know, for a movie studio that had 2 sequels on record until 2018 and prided itself on dropping stand-alone classics, we might want to think about what it means to have Frozen 2, Moana 2, Zootopia 2, and Frozen 3 in a single decade. And it's not that we don't want sequels - after all, Shrek 2 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish are some of the best animated features one can find - we want good sequels. That's the keyword that has been missing. 

So anyway. Let's talk about what actually happens in Moana 2. 

Moana 2 sees Moana leave her island once again in search of the Motufetu, a mythical island whose discovery will reunite all of the people of the ocean. To complete this task, she assembles a team with (After looking at Wikipedia) Moni, Lolo, and Kele, three island inhabitants who bring fanboy energy, quirky engineer energy, and grumpy old man energy to the crew, respectively, as well as returning fan-favorite Maui. 

One of the biggest impacts that the television -> movie change gives to Moana 2 is the segmented conflicts. It's pretty easy to see what the five original episodes were going to be (Introduction + Quest Introduction, Kokomora, Bat Lady, Serpents, Finale), and it's okay to be a somewhat segmented film! We love adventure movies! The problem is what this does to the conflicts in the movie. 

Since we know that Disney typically prefers feel-good endings with no real villains, every single one of those situations is resolved without any problem. Moana meets the Kokomora, minor antagonists from the first movie? No problem, turns out they're just misunderstood and looking for their home island! There's a spooky bat lady who I was actually mildly impressed by because I thought we were getting a traditional villain? Nope, turns out she's actually just a sweetheart who gives nice advice to Moana and lets Maui free, no problem! Never mind that we've spent an hour hinting that she's the big bad of the movie! The serpents attack the ship, oh no! But the sun is rising, so they flee! Then we have a finale against... seven lightning bolts that Maui takes care of before Moana drowns, touches an island, is resurrected as a demigod, and the movie ends? What? And then a tease with the actual island God they've been talking about for the entire movie teaming up with Tamatoa? 

Like, this is some Morbius-level writing. It's actually awful. I'd say the more I think about it, the angrier I get, but the more I think about it, the less I can remember about Moana 2. It is that forgettable 

So, yeah. My biggest problem with Moana 2 is that the plot is incomprehensible and inconsequential. The supporting characters are all one-note and unfunny and barely factor into the plot, the animation is unremarkable and somehow worse than the first movie, it's remarkably unfunny, and it makes me miss the days when bad Disney sequels were resigned to direct-to-DVD instead of billion-dollar hits. Worse than that is that the music is all awful! Like, seriously, not even a *passable* song on the entire track. 

I'd say that Moana 2 should have stayed a TV show, but even then, I know it would be a subpar TV show. The best things I can say about it are that 1) I liked that they gave Moana a sister, and 2) it was cool to see Maui actually raise an island. Other than that, it was a solid hour and forty minutes down the drain. 

Overall, I give Moana 2 a 3/10. "'What if we turned How to Train Your Dragon: Race to the Edge into a movie instead of making How to Train Your Dragon 2?" 

It was NOT Maui time