Moana 2 kicks off three years after the original, throwing the Polynesian Wayfinder into a whole new quest. This time, Moana is on a mission to lift the curse of Nalo, which has left island communities cut off and struggling. Her goal? To track down the legendary island of Motufetu, which is said to bring different cultures together. With a fresh crew of wayfinders and plenty of challenges—including face-offs with the underworld goddess Matangi—Moana dives headfirst into another adventure.

Moana 2 Review

Clocking in at an hour and forty minutes (three minutes shorter than the 2016 hit), one might think that Moana 2 would be a tightly structured adventure that gets to the point quickly and takes its audience on an economical and enjoyable journey that expands on the goodwill earned by the first. Unfortunately, it appears that the writers ran out of ideas and opted to redo the first, but with more characters and less character growth.

In this sequel, Moana is a fully realized woman who is super-awesome and super happy with her life until she finds a piece of pottery that convinces her that life could be even better by inviting countless unvetted strangers into her people’s world. Mind you, that her island appears to be prospering and full of happy island folk. So, off she goes on some vaguely important journey to face off against an unknown and undeveloped foe who amounts to little more than a big storm/boss battle in the film’s final moments. However, along the way, she will amass a crew consisting of undeveloped and uninteresting people whose presence on an ocean-spanning adventure makes no sense, save perhaps the one who builds ships. You’ve got your weak, old, grumpy man, a 90 lbs woman who can cut through thick masts with a single chop of her stone hand scythe for some reason, and a strapping but otherwise useless young man who paints pictures.

There is nothing organic about her crew’s assemblage. Instead, we are clumsily introduced to each member on her home island, and they are then made her crew. But let not your heart be troubled; there are all kinds of meaningless adventures ahead.

A cartoon film doesn’t necessarily need well-fleshed-out and reasonable characters to be enjoyable as long as the adventure is compelling. In the forty minutes allotted to the movie’s adventure, Moana and her crew will encounter no fewer than two antagonists who actually want her to succeed and only pretend to be obstacles for vague reasons before letting her and her crew go.

And Maui is there.

Nothing in Moana 2 is earned. What plot there is doesn’t make any sense, and the characters are little more than plot conveniences used to get us to the next musical number. So, if beautiful visuals and forgettable but well-done songs are enough for you, Moana 2 might be your holiday family film.

PARENTAL NOTES

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