2 min to read
Moana 2
Is this Disney sequel as good as its predecessor?
The Good: Sadly, one of the only great things about this movie is the animation. Disney’s animation absolutely killed it with this one, having every scene and every frame looking absolutely gorgeous. They’ve really been making each project year after year look better, and this is no exception.
The Meh: Everything else about the movie fits into this category. The story, while simple, felt both rushed and stretched out at the same time. During the course of the movie there is so little going on it really felt like they had more ideas that they could have (and should have) added to the story but it would have made the film a little too long, with some of these ideas even being slightly explored during the movie. It really feels like they dropped the ball on this end compared to the first movie, especially since the story of the first was so unique and very well executed. I guess that’s what you get when you convert your Disney+ show into a movie.
While I’ve never been the biggest fan of the music of the first movie (I’m not a huge fan of most modern Disney animated songs though), the music in the movie is not on the same tier as the first, only having 1 memorable(ish) song. The songs in the first movie were vibrant and jovial, but the songs in this (besides not being as catchy) are more melancholy and are in unique minor keys, and I think that caused the music a disservice.
Maui, Moana, and her baby sister are also the only real interesting characters in the movie too. They tried adding more people to Moana’s crew for the adventure, but they all only had 1 purpose for the story and that was it. They didn’t try to make the new characters interesting or that fun, so they fell really flat as characters. There are also new gods/demigods introduced, but they also have such little screen time and development their addition almost seemed to be wasteful, and they added confusion to the simple story being told.
Overall: This movie isn’t bad, but it’s obvious it was a tv show cut down to a movie (literally just to make money for Disney). It is entertaining enough that kids will still thoroughly enjoy the movie, but teenagers and adults will be a little bored by it. There were a lot of fun ideas introduced in the movie, and I think they chose to tell the most simple, safer yet boring story. it may be best to wait until this is on Disney+
Rating: 2.5/5
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