Recent animated movies created by Disney have been nothing short of boring, and Moana 2 continues that trend. With the recent releases of Wish and Elemental, the movies have been predictable and worthy to watch if you want to rewind and fall asleep. Disney has been known to create cult classics and films that will be watched for generations, like Peter Pan, Dumbo, and Bambi. While Moana 1 was definitely not a cult classic, it’s a rewatchable film that you’ll enjoy every time you watch it. The movie is quite engaging; the animation and visuals are vibrant and stunning, but most importantly, Dwayne the “Rock” Johnson’s singing is addicting. With Moana 1 being such an enjoyable movie, where did the sequel go so wrong?
Charlie’s take:
There’s a few things that really stood out to me throughout this movie. The main thing was the animation. It was genuinely incredible. Disney is so good at animating liveliness into the elements, and the ocean in this movie honestly felt like a main character to me. It had the same effect as the ice in Frozen 2, bringing so much artistic value to the film. The color pallet, animation fluidity, and overall production of the movie is nothing short of phenomenal. There are some really awesome parts throughout it, and they did a great job accurately aging up the characters and continuing the storyline from where it left off. Unfortunately, I do not feel this movie even closely compares to the original, which is a shame, because it definitely had an opportunity to.
I felt that everything down to the musical numbers just felt watered down and less interesting– and the overall plot of the story was just kind of.. Eh? It had a relatively slow beginning, and the ending, while sweet, was nothing to write home about for me. It could have been predicted once you watched the first 5 minutes of the film. Our friend Sam added that “During the first half of the movie, it felt like a repetition of the original movie,” which shows the creators were definitely failing at finding new concepts to include that kept the film exciting. I feel like the growth aspect and coming-of-ageness kind of reached its peak in the first movie, so the entire second one was just adventuring with a less meaningful purpose.
This movie also felt a lot more like a musical than the original, and I think the reason for that is that in the first movie, the songs were actually good. Lin Manuel Miranda was not involved in the music this time around, which explains my disappointment. I honestly couldn’t recite a lyric to a song in Moana 2 if you gave me a billion dollars. That goes to say for most of it, including the anticlimactic storyline. It was overall just underwhelming. Speaking of, the new characters fit that description perfectly. I don’t even remember any of their names! They almost felt like background characters. They all had such a shallow depth to them–having one personality trait they were completely based off of– and didn’t add anything significant to the film at all.
Overall, the OG Moana is my favorite Disney movie, but Moana 2 doesn’t even make the top 10. The songs? unmemorable. The characters? shallow. The plot? Just plain boring! The only thing making this movie worth the watch is the impressive animation, which I really appreciate. However when a wave has more personality than any of the ten billion freshly crafted new characters, it’s a sign to stop. Moana 2 isn’t terrible, it’s just mediocre, which honestly makes it even less worth watching. They had an opportunity to do exactly what they did with Frozen and appeal to the same demographic that watched the original, but instead made it even more childish, which was an extreme letdown for me, and many others as I’ve come to find out. Our friend Sam had watched the movie a few days prior, and described her primary emotion as “bored,” which perfectly encapsulates how I felt throughout nearly the entire movie.
Bennys Take:
Starting off with this review, I want to list the good things about the movie because it’ll only take a few sentences. The animation and vibrant visuals make the movie visually pleasing. The new characters introduced in the movie add a refreshed feel, so nothing is overused. The songs have somewhat of a vibe, but nothing like the first movie. The best thing in the movie, honestly, is Pua. Pua is the fat pig who waddles around but makes every scene he features the best part of the film. Aside from the visuals and the pig, I’m terribly afraid to say that’s all Moana 2 had.
The movie had such a bland Hollywood plot where you could predict everything that would happen. From the giant clam fight with the Kakamoras to Matangi, the bat lady, you would already know the end result before they even fought. From the beginning of the movie, when they mentioned how they would find Motufetū, I had a pretty good guess how she would find it and somehow create a dramatic almost-death scene. One of our friends who watched the movie, Sam, explained the ending as, “I felt like the ending of the Moana movie was very similar to the first one, which didn’t make it as intriguing as the original.” The original Moana ending was captivating and had you on the edge of your seat, while this movie felt like they only released it for its name because the director needed some extra money to create even more mediocre films.
The end of Moana 2 was very anticlimactic and bland. It didn’t make the watcher feel drawn or connected to it. Sam’s take on the movie was much like mine: “I feel like they could have made a different plot,” and she added, “so there was more suspense throughout the movie.” The movie truly was nothing short of watchable melatonin. I had to fight myself from falling asleep a few times because of how dry and “dead” the movie was. The end had a very cliché ending where you overcame this huge obstacle with resilience and perseverance, and you finally found what you were looking for. They also had a cheesy family hug scene at the end that I can promise you didn’t create tears of sadness but rather tears from how boring it was.
The Verdict:
Overall, our opinions on the film are pretty obviously the same. We walked out disappointed with nearly nothing good to say about the movie, which was super upsetting. Unfortunately, the great animation was not enough to save Moana 2 from its boring plot and characters. The first movie had our hearts, while the second had us wishing it wasn’t even produced. Unsurprisingly, others feel the same, with Sam adding that she “thinks the second movie was a bad idea…” and that “If there had been a different plot it would’ve been less easy to predict.” This movie had potential for sure, but in the end, it didn’t even reach the brink of it. Moana 2 is nothing less than a waste of time where you could get more enjoyment out of watching paint dry than that visually stunning, plotless sack of potatoes.