Moana 2 Review – Samoan Safety Dance

When Moana opened 8 years ago, the whole world was wrapped up in Maui fever, singing “You’re Welcome” every time they did something nice for their fellow human. Moana brought a connection to the Samona history, culture, and legends that have not been seen in many years. Can Moana 2 keep that connection afloat as Moana heads off on another adventure, or does this ship have so many holes that it sinks?

Title: Moana 2
Production Company: Walt Disney Animation Studios
Distributed by: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Directed by: David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, & Dana Ledoux Miller
Produced by: Christina Chen & Yvett Merino
Written by: Jared Bush & Dana Ledoux Miller
Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Hualālai Chung, Rachel House, Awhimai Fraser, Gerald Ramsey, & Alan Tudyk
Release dates: November 27, 2024
Running time: 100 minutes
Rating: G

Moana 2: Wooden Boat Boogaloo

Moana 2 Story Summary – SPOILERS

Story Review – Some Vague Spoilers

The story of Moana 2 might as well be called “copy and paste” since just about everything feels like it was done directly from the first movie that was such a hit 8 years ago. From the opening score of the opening moments, all the way to the closing credits and a mid-credits scene featuring a certain crab monster, you can tell that Disney wanted to play things safe with this movie.

Moana 2 opens with the happy people of Motunui Island going about their daily lives, only this time adding the original and now ongoing adventures of Moana and her wayfinding ways to their song. Moana gets a moment with her family, which now includes a little sister, and a traditional scene involving her new place in the tribe. After a vision from her ancestors, Moana sets out on a new adventure on the seas, reuniting with Maui and heading to the monster world in order to fulfill the vision that she got at the beginning of the film, complete with a singing villain, an upset god, and the world’s luckiest chicken.

All of this sound familiar? Because it does. There is nothing in Moana 2 that didn’t happen in Moana. There’s no making waves, no rocking the board, and Maui doesn’t eat HeiHei again… All of this comes off as boring once you work it out, and that is something that we should not get from a sequel, especially a Disney sequel. We should get character development, excitement, and some amazing musical numbers. But when you get a paint-by-numbers formula that doesn’t do anything different, you end up with something that would have gone “Direct-to-Video” in the old days without having to pay cinema money to see it.

Moana and Her Weird Crew of Misfits

• Auliʻi Cravalho as Moana
  Cravalho continues to shine as Moana. 8 years on from her first time in the role and she jumps right back into it like recording for Moana only ended a week ago. Her character comes off as the same brash and adventurous spirit that she was the first time around, but now with experience backing her up. While she doesn’t learn too much with this adventure, she does make it fun and personal to her and her people.
• Dwayne Johnson as Maui
  Johnson returns as the Demigod that he is also going to play in the live-action version. Much like Moana, he jumps right back into the role like he just finished with the first recording a week ago. While his key song “Can I Get a Chee’Hoo” isn’t as catchy as “You’re Welcome”, and the writers tried way too hard to give Maui Robin Williams’ Genie-style modern-day references, Maui still comes off as a lot of fun and wild energy that we’ve come to expect.
• Rose Matafeo as Loto
  A “brainy but quirky” member of Moana’s wayfinding crew. Loto comes off as someone who understands two things: Everything can be destroyed, and nothing is perfect. What could have been someone who could bring conflict and drama to Moana and what she knows about wayfinding, Loto just gets shoved into the background until something technical needs to be done and then she just ends up doing it.
• David Fane as Kele
  The grumpy old man who is brought on board just to complain about everything till late in the movie when he suddenly decides that he knows Kakamora after befriending one of the little Coconut people who joins the crew along the way. I think he’s just there to be the negative audience that Disney has been dealing with for the last few years in order to get a few laughs from the young ones. He’s ultimately pointless
• Hualālai Chung as Moni
  A Maui fanboy and the pointless dumb guy character in the movie. Moni comes on the adventure for no other reason than to meet Maui and because he seems to have a crush on Moana. Much like Kele, he serves no real purpose and has nothing to do throughout the whole film. He does the mat paintings to journal the adventure, but something always happens to the ones he creates… So why is he there? Because Moana isn’t allowed to be solo this time or Moana 2 would be 100% like the first movie.
• Awhimai Fraser as Matangi
  Matangi is a weird one… At first, she comes off as a minion for Nalo, and the bringer of his plan, but after we hear more about her background, she comes off as someone who is trapped by Nalo, serving him while wanting her freedom for some reason that isn’t exactly clear. So is she a villain or not? We’ll never know. All we know is that Fraser gives Matangi a lot of sass and also a creepy stalker vibe whenever she mentions Maui… Maybe there is more there that we’ll find out about in later movies.
• Tofiga Fepulea’i as Nalo
  The God of storms would normally be someone to be feared, but how do you fear someone who doesn’t even bother to do anything for 90% of the film, and then when he does, everything can be undone by the power of some old dead humans singing? As The Hulk would say “Puny god”.
• Temuera Morrison as Tui (Moana’s Father), Nicole Scherzinger as Sina (Moana’s mother), and Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda as Simea (Moana’s Little Sister)
  Moana’s family doesn’t play much of a role in Moana 2, much like they did in Moana. We get a small moment with Moana and Simea, showing their sisterly bond and happy relationship with each other, complete with Moana showing Simea the location where Moana first found the boats of her tribe. I’m sure this was meant to be touching, but it wasn’t needed when looking at the overall picture. Tui and Sina are just… there. Tui gets a moment as Chief of the village to have a moment with Moana, granting her a title that hasn’t been given to anyone since the wayfinders stopped going out to sea. It’s a touching moment with a lot of traditional fanfare but only serves as the gateway to the main plot. Sina gets her moment too, as Moana wants her to come on the ship with her, but Sina’s commitment to her family and village takes priority and ends her role in the movie too. A shame that we don’t get more with Moana’s family since the concept of family plays heavily into Samoan culture.
• Alan Tudyk as Heihei
  The Chicken is back! Heihei is just as dumb as ever and continues to be the best thing that happens in anything to do with Moana and her journey. How Heihei continues to live is the best story that we didn’t know we needed.

Don’t Break What Isn’t Broken

After a lot of disappointing remakes and adaptations from Disney, it is a good thing and a bad thing that Moana 2 plays things safe.

On the good side of things, you will know exactly what you are going to get when it comes to the plot. As I mentioned before, the plot of Moana 2 is pretty much the same as Moana. We see Moana, this time with a few extra characters, and Maui, heading off on an adventure to unite her tribe from Motunui with the rest of the world. We have some sort of monsterous big bad evil person trying to stop them along the way, and Moana learning a lesson about her heritage in order to make things right with the world and open up a passage to other island nations. Along the way we also get some nice Samoan-style songs, using the native language in a beautiful way, and some boppy fun songs sung by our hero Maui. This is good, this is safe, and this will not get anyone upset by pushing a modern social message. Moana 2 is a good, safe, kids’ movie.

On the flip side, Moana 2 doesn’t try to do anything new with its setting, plot, or characters. This type of stagnation is what kills franchises. I’m not saying that Moana and Maui have to do things outside of their scope or character (though Maui makes a couple of modern-day reference jokes, much like Dwayne is trying to channel Robin Williams’ Genie from Aladdin). I’m just saying that we didn’t need to see another wayfinding journey where Moana learns something about herself and her culture that was once lost. There needed to be more to the story than that, and overall, the movie suffers because of it.

Not as Catchy as the First Outing

While Moana 2 plays it safe with its story and plot points, there were some downgrades along the way. These downgrades come in terms of the music and the villains.

One thing about Moana was that the soundtrack was full of an amazing mix of music, moments, and monsters. To this day, 8 years later, I can throw on the Moana soundtrack, and my wife and I will sing along to almost every song as we enjoy every moment. With Moana 2… Not so much. A lot of the soundtrack comes off as follow-ups to the popular songs of the first film, with nothing living up to the standards of songs such as “Where You Are”, “How Far I’ll Go”, “Shiny”, and the song that’ll be forever on repeat in my mind: “You’re Welcome”.

The soundtrack tries to replicate these songs with things like “We’re Back” being much like “Where You Are”, “Beyond” trying hard and failing to be “How Far I’ll Go”, and “Can I Get a Chee’Hoo?” attempting to be the bop that “You’re Welcome” is… And they didn’t even try to top “Shiny” because that’s just impossible given the villains in this movie having the charisma of Dwayne Johnson during his WWF debut.

Speaking of the villains, or should I say villain, there wasn’t much to these two. Nalo, for all the bluff and bluster of him being the God of Storms and the reason for the whole adventure, only shows up in the mid-credits scene to tease that third film in this trilogy. For someone who is so powerful that he can do what he does in the third act to both Maui and Moana, he is no threat at all since everything can be undone through one chant and a bit of magic from the ancestors… Yep, Gods mean nothing compared to Tala.

Then we have Matangi, who is the real villain of the film… But not quite… It’s complicated. Matangi comes off as more of an ex-girlfriend or jealous female friend of Maui, with a level of sass that is right up there with modern versions of other female villains like Emma Stone’s version of Cruella. Matangi gets her song moment with “Get Lost”, but it is no “Shiny”. But, of course, Matangi changes her tune the moment she meets Moana, going all “girl power” and making it sound like she is the victim of a man’s evil plan… So in the end she is not really a villain after all I guess.

Moana 2 is One for the Kids

Moana 2 is something of a problem when it comes to reviewing it. The first movie was such a hit from start to finish, making it one of Disney’s more modern masterpieces, something that would have fit in the golden age of animation in the 1990s. It plays things safe and doesn’t try to make waves for the sake of shaking things up, but at the same time, it plays things a little too safe and too close to the original movie that you can’t help but feel disappointed with the result. But the kids will like it, and that’s the main thing. This isn’t a movie for adults or even Disney Adults, but for the kids… And if they are happy, then Disney is happy.