“Moana 2”: Disney At Its Laziest

After the huge success that was Inside-Out 2, it seemed like Disney was ready to return to the good old days. Maybe it was too soon to get excited.

Summary

Three years after their first adventure, Moana and Maui, now accompanied by a group of seafarers, go on a new journey to find a way to connect their people across the ocean.

Almost Eight Years Later

I have a controversial take: the first Moana is not that great. I know there’s a lot of people who loved it, which is precisely the reason Disney wanted a sequel, but I fail to see what is so wonderful about it. It’s not a bad film per se, but in the grand scheme of things, and knowing what Disney is (or was) capable of in terms of storytelling, Moana is just not one of their best.

Even if we just compare it to films released during the period between 2015 and 2022, a decidedly bumpy time for the company, Moana is pretty average. Other original films theatrically released during that time, like Inside-Out, Zootopia, or Coco, are much better, in my opinion.

That is why Moana 2 was not a project I was particularly excited to watch last year. However, around mid-2024, I started to notice a heavy promotion for the film. I go to the theater two or three times a month at least, and as early as June, there were promotional posters in the halls, and the trailer was being shown before every single film. There even was a Moana short reminding people to turn off their phones. It was impossible to not know that the sequel was coming out. This, along with the pleasant surprise that was Inside-Out 2, made me think that maybe Disney had something with that film. At least they looked confident.

The Trend of Recycling Content

Back in the day, it took at least a couple of installments to downgrade something. With Moana, they went from average to mediocre in just one film. But it’s not just about Disney having no talent left; there is an explanation as to the descent in quality: the project was never meant to be a film.

The success of 2016 Moana paved the way for other related projects. As early as December 2020, it was known that an animated series based on the film was in development for Disney+. This was supposed to be done in parallel to a live-action remake of the film that is currently in production. The thing is that at some point, it was decided that the series was going to be turned into a film and have a theater release.

Translation: Disney was going through a hard time and decided to make some easy money. A smart move, as they know kids love Moana, and as long as no ideological controversies arose to put a stain on the project, parents would gladly pay for the tickets.

Kids Deserve Better Movies

Had Moana 2 been a great film, I would gladly give Disney some credit and set everything else aside. However, a shameless rehash of the original cannot be considered a great movie.

This time around, Moana has to find an island that connects all the other islands to find other people and prevent her own from going extinct in the future. For that mission, she assembles a group of Motunui inhabitants.

My first problem is that the movie is boring. More than I could possibly describe. And before someone says that the objective audience is young kids, Disney animated movies should not make adults fall asleep. Differently from, let’s say, Illumination, Disney’s brand has always had families as a target, not just kids. That aside, I argue that kids also deserve good movies.

All the new characters that are introduced have no personality or charisma. The crew that accompanies Moana is chosen randomly and plays no significant part in the story. The little sister is adorable, but she is there for like five minutes.

If there is something I must admit about the original, is that it has some good songs. This time, they couldn’t even get that right. I cannot for the life of me remember one single song, and I watched the film less than two weeks ago.

In short, the whole thing was forgettable. An hour and a half of my life that will never come back.

Critical Response and Box Office Results

And Disney got away with it: by the time the criticism started going around, most people had already paid their ticket. Also, as I’ve already mentioned, kids love the character; of course they would want to go watch the film.

In six weeks, Moana 2 has made $959.799.359 worldwide, becoming one of the highest grossing films of the year. Even though the production budget was high, with $150.000.000, it can be considered a financial success. Of course, ignoring the marketing costs, which I’m sure was no trinket.

But at least for now, point for Disney. Even though they don’t deserve it.