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.

Moana 2 PARENTAL NOTES

PG Appropriate

• There is some PG-level intensity.

WOKE REPORT

The Premise

• Obviously, the very idea that a stone-age patriarchal island tribe would produce a young woman with aspirations beyond motherhood, let alone rejoice in her leaving the island during her most fertile years, is abjectly ridiculous and woke on its surface. So, by that rationale, one could technically say that the entire film is woke. That said, it does show many women happily paired with men and does not get sanctimonious about Moana’s life choices.
  • Not including remakes, it’s been 14 years since a Disney princess fell in love with and wanted to marry a man in 2010’s Tangled, and in that time, the Female Happiness Index has continued its 35-year decline.
• Moana’s goal is to unite all of the tribes of the ocean… because, for some unknown reason, inviting countless unvetted people from alien cultures into your world will increase everyone’s happiness. I’m all for a healthy melting pot, but this is a thinly veiled open borders metaphor. That said, the movie doesn’t harp on the idea. It’s briefly introduced as a good thing in the beginning and is given a cut scene at the film’s end.

Level-Up: Girl-Boss God Mode

• Spoiler

  In this case, it is the literal truth. By the end of the adventure (one in which Moana barely struggles to succeed), Moana gets upgraded to an ambiguous level of godhood. While it’s unclear to what level, it appears to be at least that of an entry-level demi-god. This upgrade had nothing to do with the plot in any way. She sacrificed herself to achieve her vague goal, and the spirits of her ancestors showed up and bestowed her with power.
  This happens in the film’s final moments after the conflict has been resolved. Therefore, it didn’t move the needle as far as it might have had it been the film’s thrust.
• Moana has a can-do attitude and never fails, but she’s not exactly what I’d call a girl boss – nothing like Star Wars’s Rey, for example. Instead, Moana 2 needs her to succeed in each task, and so the writers insert convenience after convenience to move her and the story along.
• That said, prior to the real start of this film’s adventure, her tribe decides to raise her to the level of Superchief (I don’t recall the actual Polynesian title) to guide them to the next evolutionary state of their society. Of course, they do this because… She has obviously earned it since… As a solo adventurer over the last three years, she’s shown her leadership skills with her pig and chicken. So, clearly, she should be in charge of the entire tribe instead of her father, who has actually done a bang-up job thus far.
• Girl shipwright. Yup, one of Moana’s new crew is a (relatively) short-haired, brainy chick who’s into stone-aged STEM. Even though she is on screen quite a bit, her character is little more than a built-in MacGuffin to help move the plot along when needed.

Represent, yo!

• The Polynesian Islands are in the South Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles away from any African nation. Yet, the first islanders to find Moana after she and her crew
  Spoiler

  succeed in their task
  appear to be from an African tribe. Then, in the mid-credit scene
  Spoiler

  , an obviously African god sets up Moana 3.
  It doesn’t make any sense and, therefore, only exists to earn the filmmaker’s woke points. These folks show up for a few moments at the end of the film and don’t have any dialogue, so it didn’t move the needle much.
• There is not a single primarily white culture that Disney will ever treat with the reverence and gravitas that it does Moana.

Chickify the Dudes

• The only human men on the adventure are an elderly curmudgeon and a strapping young islander. Of course, the young man repeatedly fangirls over Maui, going so far as to squeal and faint in his presence.
  • Unlike the unflappable gal shipwright, he’s also flighty and of little use.
• At least twice, the long-haired men of Moana’s tribe proudly show off how they femininely whip their hair. Maui even applauds it once.