Bracing herself for yet another hazardous journey, Moana insists to a village elder that “It’s not like last time.” Isn’t it, though? In Moana 2, a princess abandons the security of her homeland and embarks on a high-seas escapade, where she teams up with a vainglorious demigod and battles an existential threat. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically the logline for Moana, Disney’s heartfelt and winning 2016 animated feature. Rather than messing with success, Moana 2 strives to recapture its predecessor’s magic by faithfully adhering to its venerable blueprint.
That it fails is no great shame or surprise; any topographic survey of the modern cinematic landscape will uncover countless inferior sequels. What’s strange about Moana 2 isn’t that it’s a lesser movie but that it’s a work of lesser ambition. Most sequels are doomed by the obligation to provide more, invariably diluting their ancestor’s charms in a frenzy of self-defeating one-upmanship. Moana 2, by contrast, doesn’t try to do much of anything bigger or different or even interesting. It just sets sail and allows itself to be borne on the waves of its forerunner.
It doesn’t help that in the one instance where the movie does attempt to expand its scope, the result is subtraction by addition. “You need a crew,” Moana’s mother tells her, and so Moana (again voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) dutifully assembles a ragtag group of maritime subordinates. The least annoying of these is Loto (Rose Matafeo, from Starstruck), who enjoys tinkering with naval equipment and whose facility with construction continues the franchise’s persistent undermining of gender stereotypes. Less welcome are Kele (David Fane), a grouchy farmer who prefers dry land, and Moni (Hualālai Chung), a historian whose primary function appears to be obsessing over the potential return of Maui (Dwayne Johnson), the immortal warrior with the dancing tattoos and boastful demeanor. (Moana’s adorable pet pig also joins the team, though sadly not at the expense of that blasted, daffy chicken.)
Where are they sailing off to? It hardly matters. The screenplay, by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller (the latter also directed, along with Jason Hand and David G. Derrick Jr.), contrives yet another supernatural danger that imperils Moana’s native soil, but the plots of these movies aren’t their point. Their purpose is to provide diverting buddy comedy between Moana and Maui, and also to enchant audiences with the splendor of their boisterous songs.
Moana 2 falters on both fronts. One of the highlights of the original was how precisely it articulated the shifting bond between its protagonists—a relationship that evolved from mutual mistrust to grudging alliance to genuine friendship. Maui remains amiable company this time around, but now that he’s achieved emotional maturity, there isn’t much for him and his expressive ink to do; he’s a subsidiary player without an arc. As for Moana, I appreciate that the script doesn’t thrust a romance upon her, but her character has grown similarly static. She has nothing left to prove, which makes her new quest—something about rescuing a sunken island to preserve harmony and connectivity across the entire ocean—a tiresome retread.
And then there is the music, which is already the subject of much scorn; visit certain corners of the internet, and you will find venomous rhetoric castigating the songs of Moana 2—which were written by the returning team of Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i, plus new contributors Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, but not by certified hitmaker Lin-Manuel Miranda—as feeble and insipid. Such hostility seems premature; the staying power of Disney ditties tends to sharpen in the fullness of time, rather than in the immediate aftermath of their release. Certainly there doesn’t appear to be a “Let It Go” or a “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” in this batch of hymns and ballads (to say nothing of my favorite Moana track, “You’re Welcome”), but the melodies are pleasant and the percussion is sturdy. The songs here aren’t good, and they aren’t bad. They’re just fine.
And it’s that broader sense of adequacy that makes Moana 2 such a relative bummer. It’s hard to actively dislike this movie, because it does nothing to invite such antipathy. The animation is pretty but indistinctive; the dialogue is legible but unremarkable; the music is cheerful but forgettable. The film’s abiding attribute is its functionality—the impression that it exists as an artifact of quality control, a corporately declared product designed to meet minimum standards.
Of course, the Disney brand has been meticulously propagating itself for decades, but it typically delivers genuine excitement and adventure in the process. The Moana movies instead tend to focus on niceness, extolling the virtues of teamwork and tolerance. That’s understandable in pictures marketed toward children, but the presence of an actual villain might help to clarify the themes. In Moana 2, even the Kakamora, those rapacious diminutive pirates with their painted faces of rage, turn out to be good guys, while the main threat to the village’s welfare is vague and incorporeal. (A mid-credits scene introduces a potential big bad and his Thanos-like vow to exact subsequent revenge, but come on.)
The other central topic of the Moana franchise is discovery. Its heroine is a plucky and determined woman who uses her intelligence and resolve to explore new realms and unearth long-buried truths. Ironic, then, that this sequel feels like it’s running so stiffly in place. Moana may once again put her wayfinding skills to use, but in substantive terms, Moana 2 doesn’t travel anywhere.
Grade: C
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.