Moana 2

• Directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller
• November 21, 2024 (Lanikuhonua Cultural Institute) / November 27, 2024 (US)

Voice Cast

• Moana-Auliʻi Cravalho
• Maui-Dwayne Johnson
• Moni-Hualālai Chung
• Loto-Rose Matafeo
• Kele-David Fane
• Matangi-Awhimai Fraser
• Simea-Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda
• Tui-Temuera Morrison
• Sina-Nicole Scherzinger
• Tala-Rachel House
• Tautai Vasa-Gerald Ramsey
• Heihei-Alan Tudyk

Moana reunites with Maui and assembles a crew to break a curse and reconnect the people of the ocean by finding the lost island of Motufetu.

At the end of Moana I was left with the distinct impression that Moana and her people had given up their island life for a nomadic seagoing life that was more in line with their ancestors. It looked like her whole village was on the water following wherever the currents and winds took them with Moana leading the way. Here they are still living the island life but going beyond the reef I guess. At least Moana is.

The thrust of the story is that the people of the sea have been separated by the power-hungry storm god Nalo. The question I have is how does keeping the people of the sea from connecting feed this god’s power? What’s the benefit for him? This is not power over humans by inconveniencing them. Or is THAT meant for a sequel?

Rather than being carried by a small cast of characters Moana 2 gives us a larger cast since Moana must assemble a crew to get to the island whose discovery will break Nalo’s curse. A risky endeavor by the creatives since you change the dynamics of what worked the last time. Unless you gather characters that serve a purpose to the quest and story you are just padding things out.

It was padding. The group Moana assembles may be her friends and people she likes, but they are far from individuals that are capable. I know it’s meant to be like funny and all that but after a little while when your entire crew is either disinterested or appearing incompetent assuming these characters can make a great journey it gets difficult to invest in the story.

How do they aid in the quest they are a part of? Aside from more chances for comedy relief not much. Moana is capable of doing just about everything and doesn’t really need help. They are largely superfluous throughout the film. Other than the end they take up time and stretch the story out but contribute little to helping the situation.

That leads me to Maui. In the last film he was a demigod trapped on an island. Now he’s free to roam and it doesn’t look like his legendary reputation is deserved at all. Like Moana’s crew he looks borderline incompetent even if he does have a high opinion of himself. It’s not done in a never-meet-your-heroes kind of way so there is no lesson to be learned or message sent. 

This film doesn’t seem to build on much of anything that was hinted at in Moana. Moana was a pretty self-contained story but now Moana is on a mission to reconnect all the tribes is handled like they were always there as an idea. That bothers me a little bit. Maybe a line or to where they realize there are other tribes out there would’ve been much better. Introduce this new plot element. It’s not an unwarranted assumption, but there’s also no indication that there was any kind of drive to reconnect with them.

This was originally intended as a miniseries on Disney+, and the tease of more to come as well as the new things that everybody knew that we never saw on screen in the original make it feel like an animated Saturday morning spinoff. Add to that Moana 2 hints at a possible sequel with a post credits scene. The larger cast of characters feels like they belong in a sitcom and not a movie.

Yet I still managed to enjoy myself. It’s visually stunning and mindless enough entertainment though I found it very flawed. It blatantly aims for a sequel rather than leaving some stuff unanswered to build a sequel from. Everybody wants a franchise these days but not every movie can become one. Some of it looks real like these characters were inserted into images of actual environments. Generally it’s colorful and bright.

Moana 2 is an entertaining movie. It’s not perfect but you can enjoy yourself. I feel its major issues come down to blatantly aiming for third film rather than giving a satisfying a story. Not a bad choice though.