Movie Review: ‘Moana 2’

Director: David G. Derrick, Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller

Cast: Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualalai Chung, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Rachel House, Alan Tudyk

Plot: Moana has continued to explore the seas, but is yet to find any other people populating the islands. With a larger craft and crew, she sets out to find Maui and challenge the storm god Nalo to reconnect all the people.

Review: The Mouse House seems to have stumbled a bit when it comes to their animated features. They had a good run of about a decade, from Tangled through to Encanto, but then we get the lacklustre Strange World and the unwatchable Wish and suddenly they’re on the back foot. It seems that pulling up the biggest hits and smashing out sequels and live-action remakes ASAP is the immediate response. But whilst Frozen 2s script suffered for being rushed out, Moana 2 seems relatively unscathed aside from an oddity in how the villains are used.

We pick up the story a few years after the adventure with Te Fiti, where the village on Motunui is thriving but Moana (Cravalho) has not yet made contact with other tribes populating different islands. Through a vision she learns of the sunken island of Motufetu, which once connected all the islands but was sunk by Nalo. Unable to contact her demigod adventurer partner Maui (Johnson), Moana sets out with a new crew to find and restore the lost island. Along for the journey is Pua, Heihei (Tudyk) and a trio of new characters: Maui fanboy Moni, hyperactive engineer Loto and cantankerous farmer Kele (Chung, Matefeo, Fane respectively).

Maui, meanwhile, also seeks out Nalo but has been captured by his henchwoman Matangi (Fraser). This bat woman keeps Maui trapped inside a giant clam until Team Moana is able to rescue him, and together they can reach Motufetu and restore the island chain.

We’re going to take tangent to note that is absolutely not going to be a coincidence that Maui gets trapped inside a giant clam for a long stretch of this movie. If you’re aware of how that mythological figure met his end in some cultural tellings of his story then you will also be suspicious of this creative decision. Just…look it up.

Whilst there’s plenty of enjoyable parts to this movie, none of it is as successfully used as anything from the original film. Moni, Loto and Kele all have their moments of comedy and have their own unique characteristics, but we had to look up what their names were for this review. The quest they’re on keeps things moving, but does not have the stakes or the character growth of the Te Fiti adventure. Worst of all, none of the songs have that immediately catchy quality of Miranda’s songs of the first movie. At their worst, they feel generic or retreads of originals. ‘Can I Get a Chee Hoo?’ feels like an attempt to recapture ‘You’re Welcome’ and give Maui a new catch-phrase, but it falls completely flat.

Then there’s the villains…and the weird way they don’t get used. To break it down, the team have to get past Matangi to find the sunk island, and then battle Nalo and his killer storm. Matangi is some kind of bat deity who is kept in the shadows, and shown to have captured Maui and these two have some kind of unspoken history. When Moana meets here, Matangi drops a pretty solid villain song before helping them on their way. Then they fight their way through a giant storm and that’s the end of the movie. Meanwhile, we’re sitting there waiting for Matangi to come back and fulfil her role as the bad guy, or for Nalo to show his face. Instead, it’s only during the credits that we get a scene with Nalo, Matangi and Tamatoa teaming up to take on Moana and Maui.

Guys, come back…you forgot to finish the movie! Rather than having a villain in Moana 2, they’re using it as a platform to fill out the cast and set-up some enemies for Moana 3. Not a terrible concept, but it does leave this movie feeling hollow. Most of the audience had gotten up and started getting their kids out of the cinema before the mid-credit reveal, so it’s especially lacking. When the movie is failing to match the original in terms of spectacle, character and music, this feels like a misstep. It makes sense when you remember that this was envisioned as a streaming series that was adapted into a film, it feels like pilot episode.

That isn’t to say that we didn’t enjoy the movie. We went as a family and all had a fun time. Heihei is one of the funniest things in modern animation and it doesn’t take much to bring us back for that demented chook.

Oh! I completely forgot that Moana has a sister now. That doesn’t add much.

Rating: SEVEN out of TEN