Summary
Review of Disney sequel, Moana 2, which was well-awaited after the success of Moana. New writers to the soundtrack, however, might make or break the movie.
Disney has released yet another sequel: Moana 2.
Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) and Dwayne Johnson (Maui) come back to the Walt Disney Animation Studios to voice our beloved Moana and Maui for the well-awaited sequel to Moana, a 2016 film that has made its way into Disney fans’ hearts. Moana 2 had a tough act to follow — personally, I didn’t have high hopes when going to the cinema to watch it.
Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t come back to write for Moana 2’s soundtrack, despite writing for Moana’s soundtrack and bringing the magic to the story. Was this a mistake?
Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear overtook the task of writing Moana 2. If you don’t recognise those names — they’re the composers of the concept album titled “The Unofficial Bridgeton Musical”. An odd choice, but they were able to create a soundtrack that suited the plot and tone of Moana 2.
Which isn’t great, because the plot lacked in areas. When compared to Moana, this sequel has a lacklustre plotline. It had an introduction of characters for a journey that seems like to lead to nowhere, and a villain that isn’t even a villain.
The plot is centred around Moana, with her new role as a wayfinder, and her new crew — Hualālai Chung (Moni) a fun-filled character that’s a fanboy of Maui, Rose Matefeo (Loto) a perfectionist who crafts the ships for Moana, and David Fane (Kele) a grumpy farmer that was strong-armed into the crew — after Moana gets a vision from her ancestor about why no one is connected to the ocean anymore. This is because of a power-hungry storm god Nalo, who despises mortals and wants them separated, he achieved this by sinking a mystical island called Motufetu — which connected all the islands.
Without spoiling too much of the plot of the movie, Moana travels with her new crew to find the island and restore the connection with other people in the ocean to avoid their own island being deserted from the isolation Nalo inflected on mortals. They bump into demigod Maui after he is captured by Nalo’s enforcer, Awhimai Fraser (Matangi) — this is after Moana and her crew were captured by the Kakamora, a tribe of coconut-like pirates, who convince Moana and her crew to help them paralyze a giant monster clam, which leads the crew to Matangi’s lair.
This is where the plot gets confusing, up until this point Matangi was a clear villain with capturing Maui and not letting Maui seek out Motufetu, yet when Moana and Matangi meet — Matangi helps Moana, and her crew reach Motufetu.
Compared to the plot, soundtrack, and characters, Moana 2 is disappointing when put side-by-side with Moana and would’ve been better as the original plan as a spin-off television series instead of a stand-alone movie — doesn’t mean that the movie was terrible, but it wasn’t great either.
Feature Image Credit: Disney Studios Motion Picture
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