REVIEW: ‘Moana 2’ Has A Buried Heart, If You Can Find It

Moana 2 is a mess, but it has enough heart where it counts. The titular star of one of Disney’s most successful films of all time, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho), is called by her ancestors to reunite the peoples of the ocean. But this time, Moana has a team of colorful characters along for the ride: the resourceful builder Loto (Rose Matafeo), the grumpy old farmer Kele (David Fane), and the go-getter storyteller Moni (Hualalai Chung). Of course, their journey isn’t for pleasure. Her village will be doomed if they don’t reach their brethren in time.

It might sound like Moana 2 managed to raise the stakes over the now-classic trials and tribulations of the original movie. But unfortunately, these stakes are forgotten as quickly as they’re revealed. The movie is simply too rushed.

The opening sequence blows right past introducing its new characters in any meaningful way, opting instead to spend time making measly meta-jokes about how Pua is really going to be in the adventure this time. And shortly after the stakes of the grand narrative are revealed, the movie forgets to follow up on them. The establishing song sort of establishes Moana and company’s current circumstances but it relies too much on the audience vividly remembering the first movie.

In the original classic, the danger Moana faces if she doesn’t return the Heart of Tafiti is tangible. We see the black, crumbling coconuts. We know something horrible is coming. In Moana 2, there is absolutely no evidence of danger to her people back home. There is also no reason to care about anybody in this movie other than Moana and her new little sister, Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda). Their bond is deep and sincerely felt throughout the film. Everybody else may as well not even be there. The main antagonist of the movie never even appears on screen once.

Moana 2 adds more characters, but it can’t seem to find their heart.

The three new characters are so poorly developed from the beginning that they’re annoying when the seafaring journey hits its first leg. They each have one characteristic, none of which are charming or funny, and only one of them really grows from one end of the movie to the next. And if it seems weird that it’s taken until the fourth paragraph to even mention the co-lead of the original film, the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), it’s because that’s just how little his presence is felt, either.

Maui is completely phoned in as a character in this movie. His funniest moments are meta jokes for the adults in the audience, and only half of those even land. He has a few heartfelt moments, but like the rest of the non-Moana cast, he doesn’t learn a single lesson the whole movie.

It’s not that Moana’s lessons are remarkably coherent, either. A bunch of baits and switches take place with characters Moana meets. One of which is entirely confusing. Some work more effectively than others. But very few of them actually help her grow. She never actually “levels up,” as one of the movie’s godawful songs suggests she has to.

Disney needs a hard reset on its musical style. Lin Manuel Miranda is an incredibly, singularly talented musician. Nobody on this planet that they hire when they can’t get him to write songs could possibly live up to his prowess. So why keep trying to copy his style with lesser musicians?

Lin Manuel Miranda’s impact is still felt in Moana 2…unfortunately.

There are a couple of decent songs. The “I Want” song is certainly the best and most interesting musically. But even the best ones are so littered with references to the impeccable soundtrack of the original that by the time Moana 2 is over, you’ll probably just be singing the original songs to yourself all over again. And that’s being generous because a few songs are truly and tragically bad. The more the composers and songwriters are instructed to copy Miranda’s style and shove in as many words per minute as possible, the worse a song gets.

All of these poor elements are a shame because, beneath it all, Moana 2 actually has an incredible heart—enough to nearly redeem it, even. If you strip away the music, the nothing characters, and the weird porcelain-like sheen of the models, Moana’s story in the movie is actually incredible and deeply moving.

A lot of the character’s success is thanks to excellent voice acting and incredible singing by Cravalho. She sells it as a movie about a young person who’s finally found her calling and is suddenly approached by her ancestors to fulfill an impossible task.

Setting the fate of your entire people on your shoulders is a monumental and unfair burden. The moments throughout Moana 2 where she wrestles with the burden and privilege of carrying the dreams of everyone who came before her for the sake of all those yet to come are beautiful. They’re not even fleeting. They permeate the whole picture and reinforce even the movie’s weakest elements.

For all the ways Moana 2 fails to live up to the standards set by the Disney films of the 2010s, it has a buried heart that nearly redeems it. If you latch onto that core element, it makes all of the rest of the movie at least more tolerable.

Moana 2 is playing now in theaters everywhere.