REVIEW: MOANA 2

Way back in 2016, Moana's quest to return The Heart of Te Fiti ran perfectly parallel to both Moana's own sense of unrest and her community's need to return to their voyaging roots, motivations that were all intrinsic--and also very well-established in that first act. The opposing forces were also clear--not just in the presence of lava monsters or killer coconuts, but in the attitudes she faced from her overprotective father and her swaggering demigod sidekick. Her ultimate discovery, that the island she was trying to restore and the monster she had to thwart were one and the same, was likewise an organic extension of her inherent compassion and discernment.

That first film understood the basic chemistry of the adventure narrative, and how it sang when thoughtfully applied to the Disney aesthetic, so they don't really have an excuse for bungling the mixture this time around.

For a film determined to fit in as many characters as will fit on one poster, very little about this sequel was character-centric. Moana has a sailing crew this time around, for example. This motley crew possibly served some kind of purpose back when this project was conceived as a full tv series, where they no doubt each had their own specific tracks and culminating moments, but in execution they contribute less to the narrative than the screaming chicken.

Moana herself is hardly handled any better. She embarks on this mission exclusively because the ancestors sent her a spirit lightning vision telling her she had to. There's no internal motivation propelling her into the purple storm here. Neither does Moana herself really earn the revelations that enable to advance through this mission--they're just handed to her like flags on some psychedelic version of The Amazing Race.

The musical numbers were all phoned in. I'll tip my hat to Ms. Cravalho for supplying some of the most elaborate vocals in a Disney pic, but even now I only remember the tune to one of the songs, and only a handful of lyrics. Worse, I had the recurring experience of landing at the end of each number feeling like I had discovered nothing. None of the catharsis of Let it Go. None of the elation of Part of Your World.

In a way, this was kind of inescapable because here Moana has no real questions to be answered or even views to be challenged. She is taking no risks. I think the fact that she feels no real hesitancy about taking this quest is supposed to be played as Disney Princess Spunk™, but it winds up working very much to the story's detriment because there is no tension. No specific flaw in her community or herself that we're worried about her overcoming. Moana winds up becoming redundant in her own story.

There were some artistically inspired moments within the animation itself. The 4th of July fireworks might keep your eyes in the sky just long enough that you might forget the faire grounds are being held together by rubber bands.

--The Professor

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