As many of us know, Disney has been releasing sequels and live action remakes of many of their old stories. “Moana 2” was recently released in theaters on Nov. 27, and though it was originally supposed to be a Disney+ original series, “Moana 2” was made into a movie less than a year after the show was being produced.
After learning it was supposed to be a TV show, I was able to make a connection to where each episode would end and begin. Because of the switch, the pacing in this movie was a problem. It was too slow at the beginning and too rushed at the end. The original plot of the movie was repeated too many times where it didn’t leave much room for the rest of the story to explain itself. Lines such as “we need to connect our people” and “we need to do this together” were repeated to the point where it took forever to actually go on the journey. The stakes were definitely higher in this journey, where Moana went on a longer adventure to find a lost island called Motufetu that brought people from other islands together. This made “Moana 2” much more interesting compared to the first movie, where the journey was much shorter and simplistic. However, because of this wasted time explaining this exposition, there was not any leftover time for the story or the new characters to develop, leaving a few plot holes.
I expected there to be more characters in “Moana 2”, since in the first movie, there was mostly only Moana and Maui along with Te Fiti and Moana’s animal friends. These newer characters that came with Moana on her journey were a good addition to the movie, each with their own personalities. I liked how now there was a need for a crew and Moana had to “practice what she preached” by working together with the people on her island. Simea, Moana’s sister, was also a good addition, but she was barely in the movie and her character solely revolved around not wanting Moana to leave. She was still cute, but she was easily forgotten.
Mantagi, the villain everyone thought she was going to be, had wasted potential. For many viewers, it was confusing if she was evil or not until she was gone from the screen. Mantagi had a great character design, great voice and a cool yet confusing song, but she was barely in the movie and was not needed in the plot.
The songs in the movie were fine and upbeat, but they were not better than the original songs. “Beyond” was the new “How Far I’ll Go,” but it made the movie feel fresh as well as recalling the original. Maui’s “Chee Hoo” song was also his new “Your Welcome” song. It was a bit basic for me, but it was supposed to uplift Moana, and it got the job done. Many fans, including myself, were disappointed that Lin Manuel Miranda didn’t write the music. Though these songs worked, it was easy to tell the difference in quality and expression in the lyrics.
The animation was high quality and very expressive. A lot of the scenes were action scenes, which were very cool to see, especially with the amazing animation for those battles and fights. The humor in this movie was off, though, with their “jokes” being directed towards younger audiences. Most of the humor revolved around Hei Hei’s screams or some sort of giant, gross blob falling on the characters.
I usually do not cry when watching Disney movies, but for the first “Moana” movie, I did. When Moana had to leave her island and had to take on this journey by herself, I found that to be very emotional. This change for Moana was very quick, and she realized that she had to fulfill this role and save her island. For “Moana 2,” there wasn’t a lot of room for emotional scenes to take place. Everything was rushed, and I felt myself having to quickly catch up with the story instead of feeling for the characters.
“Moana 2” is a good movie, but it was too simple in story and characters. The first “Moana” movie was done very well while being simple because the pacing was layered and it progressed through the character’s development well. There are still things to like about “Moana 2,” but the movie could have definitely cut out unnecessary detours in the journey and random dialogues. The story needed to progress to the journey much more quickly so there could be more time to explain certain scenes, characters and to process the new story that was just so rushed in the end. It still passed as an enjoyable movie; but, Disney is a huge, prestigious company that was expected to make amazing movies. Is “mid” going to be acceptable for Disney movies now?
