Moana 2 (2024)

micro review

I don’t really have a lot to say about “Moana 2” (2024).

Had this been a stand-alone movie, it probably would have been fine; unfortunately, it had to follow in the footsteps of “Moana (2016)” and just couldn’t fill those shoes.

Blessedly, it didn’t feel like a soulless money-grab the way “Independence Day: Resurgence” (2016) did, but it definitely wasn’t as fulfilling as it needed to be.

The movie felt very paint-by-numbers with the order of events: Moana (Auli’I Cravalho) decided something wasn’t quite right on her home island of Matu Nui, her grandmother gave some words of wisdom, she set out across the ocean and found demi-god Maui (Dwayne Johnson) in a predicament, Maui sang her a song written specifically in the key register that Dwayne Johnson could sing in, there was an anti-hero one-off character that sang something, and then Moana and Maui teamed up to fight a god. They even had a run-in with the weird Nakimori sentient coconut pirates and Heihei the chicken (Alan Tudyk) was there.

That’s… that’s it. Disney’s art style stayed the same and continued to hire Polynesian actors for the voice lines.

The loss of Lin-Manuel Miranda as the lyricist was very much felt here as none of the songs were as catchy as anything in the first movie.

It wasn’t bad, I promise, it just wasn’t worth paying to see in theaters.

If you have small children, they’ll enjoy this just as much when they watch it on Disney+, so save your dollars for another month of streaming subscriptions.