Disney’s Moana 2 begins with our heroine (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) now a full-fledged wayfinder of her tribe who’s tasked with finding other inhabited islands and bringing the different peoples of the ocean together. A shard of pottery on a deserted island convinces her elders that she’s on the right path, so she’s given a bigger boat with a crew: a grumpy old farmer (voiced by David Fane), a strong young oarsman (voiced by Hualālai Chung), and a brilliant engineer (voiced by Rose Matafeo). Their quest brings her back in contact with Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), who’s on the same trail.
The movie really doesn’t get going until Moana gets back out on that ocean, and even then her interactions with the crew aren’t as interesting as we’d like, although that oarsman does turn into a total fanboy in Maui’s presence. The trickster demigod remains the best thing about the film, with The Rock’s irreverent wisecracking playing into his strengths. (Look across the multiplex at Red One for an object lesson on how not to use him.) He gets the film’s musical highlight, too, with Maui’s motivational song “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?”
Unfortunately, with Lin-Manuel Miranda off writing songs for a different Disney project, the score loses that island magic. Cravalho’s singing voice remains immensely pleasurable to hear, but her three songs in a row yield nothing truly memorable, and she is upstaged not just by Johnson but by Awhimai Fraser as a morally ambiguous captive of the gods, whose song “Get Lost” encourages Moana to live less encumbered by rules. (Although this song has no visible effect on Moana’s character, so what’s the point of it being here?) New songwriters Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear are both in their early 20s, and it would seem that this project has come to them too soon.
I do like what the sequel does with the Kakamora, those cute but murderous sentient coconuts who are revealed to be somewhat misunderstood. The movie also has a terrific new sea monster that looks like a mountainous island but is actually an island-sized giant clam. All this still doesn’t succeed in getting Moana 2 into anything like a groove. Our heroes’ climactic showdown with the storm god Nalo (voiced by Tofiga Fepulea’i) huffs and puffs to very little effect, and it’s over seemingly before it even starts up. As fun and ground-breaking as the original film was, this sequel feels rote by comparison. I mean, even last year’s soccer comedy Next Goal Wins depicted Polynesian culture in more detailed terms. The post-Thanksgiving crowd at the multiplex expects better from Disney, and deserves better.
Moana 2
Voices by Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller. Written by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller. Rated PG.
