Moana 2 is lost at sea

Ship breaking dismantles a decommissioned vessel so that its constituent parts can be repurposed, even reused. It’s a nasty business, but recycling is certainly better than scuttling something down to the briny depths. Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) wasn’t originally supposed to set sail again on the big screen. Her further adventures were meant to fill the streaming rows of Disney+ as a series. But the powers that be decided (possibly because the Frozen sequel made $1.5 billion) that the show was to be reconfigured into a movie, and the intrepid daughter of her island’s chief—still technically not a princess—repositioned as its driving force. The resulting feature debut of directing team David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller is a ramshackle Franken-ship still seaworthy enough to navigate its theatrical release, but it’s got more in common with straight-to-video sequels than the clever original.

Three years have passed and Moana no longer needs to figure out who she is. She knows that she can be both the future leader of her people and an adventurer, and so does her community. Her island is now populated exclusively by Moana fans, falling over themselves to worship her and the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) with whom she wrote her way into legend. This is usually where Disney heroes kick up their heels and start happily-ever-aftering, but Moana is called once more, inelegantly, away from home.

After the clarity of one of Disney’s best “I Want” songs, the quest Moana is set upon feels forced and fake: After discovering a shard of pottery marked with the location of a mysterious island, Moana is confronted with proof that her people are not the only people. This and her new designation as a wayfinder means that she’s asked to find that island, Motufetu—which the god Nalo has cursed, for some reason, to no longer serve as a waypoint for disparate islander peoples—and reconnect all those separated by the waves.

Moana 2 tries splitting the difference between a couple different motivations for this, gesturing both at Moana’s general curiosity about the larger world and at some uncertain ill fate that will befall her (lush, thriving) island if it stays isolated. These are half-hearted ideas, embedded in Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear’s forgettable songs, ranging from truly terrible shipwrecks to embarrassing Lin-Manuel Miranda tribute band tracks. Losing Miranda is a terrible blow for the film, though his presence still haunts the dialogue. Every other line is about knowing the way, telling our stories, and how far we’ll go. It’s like how celebrities tend to repeat the same branding-appropriate phrases after the humanity has been coached out of them. It reinforces the sense that the sequel isn’t confident enough to strike out on its own.

So too do all the new side characters the film introduces, but mostly ignores. There’s Moana’s new too-cutesy little sister (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda), and the ragtag crew who accompanies Moana on her voyage: Loto (Rose Matafeo) the manic builder, Kele (David Fane) the crotchety old farmer, and Moni (Hualālai Chung) the beefy Maui obsessive. Eventually joining them is one of the Kakamora, the Mad Max coconut gremlins with more personality than most of the humans. All feel like they’ve just been introduced by the time the credits roll—just set-up for the next episode, where they’ll eventually learn to work together as a team.

Even their main obstacles suffer from a screenplay that seems like it’s been shredded into flotsam. Nalo, for example, is a lightning god…but we don’t meet or understand him. Why did he curse this island, anyway? Where the volcanic island from the first movie was a wounded and compelling force, Nalo remains inscrutable: he manifests only as lightning, tornadoes, lightning-tornadoes, and monstrous electric eels. Secondary antagonist-but-not Matangi (Awhimai Fraser) suffers similarly from the script’s apparent slashing—her arbitrary actions feel like they’re missing a scene or two of dot-connecting.

That leaves the dressing around the plot to salvage things, and Moana 2 cruises smoothly through some of the most vivid animated water put to film. The film benefits greatly from the constant visual propulsion of the ocean; everything—the boats, the people on them, the rigging and oars, the giant monster clam in the distance—always feels like it’s moving. Throw in some delightfully varied and tactile textures, ranging from splintering wooden masts to goopy blobfish snot, and the film’s got plenty of enjoyable atmosphere, whether it’s facing down a motley vessel manned by weird little nut-pirates or the tempestuous waves of the stormy climax. It makes sense to want to see this on the big screen.

It makes less sense for this story, haphazard and lost, to follow one of Disney’s better films of the last 20 years. There’s almost an affecting message, where teamwork on a small scale results in greater togetherness on a large scale. There’s almost a charming reversal of the maturing relationship between Maui and Moana. There are recycled versions of the first film’s slapstick and songs. It all threatens to come together, if not for an unseen and all-powerful deity throwing a wrench in these plans for reasons beyond the understanding of us mere mortals. Alas, it’s lost at sea.

Director: David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller
Writer: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller
Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Rachel House, Alan Tudyk, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Rose Matafeo, David Fane, Hualālai Chung, Awhimai Fraser, Gerald Ramsey
Release Date: November 27, 2024