Why I Hated ‘Moana 2’

Moana 2 is making a ton of money. That should be cool, but it’s hard to get excited about a film that’s so obnoxiously similar to its predecessor that it feels like Disney plagiarized its own material.

The movie has pretty colors and, well… that’s about it. This is the studio that’s led the way in the animation sphere for an entire century, and here they are offering up one of the laziest, most contrived films I’ve ever seen. The more you think about Moana 2, the worse it gets. It’s a carbon copy of the first film, only it does everything worse. I’m fed up with being delivered slop from a studio that should know better and being told to lap it up. I’ve had it. I hate this movie. I hate Moana 2.

Disney has made one good decision, though it’s not one that makes the film any better. The film was originally primed to be a television series dumped onto Disney+ rather than a film, and pivoting to a cinema release will be great for their coffers. Thinking about how much money Disney is going to make off this film while knowing people will be paying a lot more money for movie tickets than they would for a Disney+ subscription to see this did not, however, improve my viewing experience. It’s as blatant a cash grab as it gets. And the worst part? It’s working.

The film’s worst aspect is the thing that made the first Moana an undeniable smash hit: the songs. New songwriters Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow have plenty of talent—their Unofficial Bridgerton Musical is witty and full of creative spirit. But there’s only one glimpse of that verve in Moana 2, which seems to have been severely limited to making songs that are hollow copies of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s numbers from Moana. It’s like Disney sat them down and said, “Just do what Miranda did.” But Bear and Barlow have a different style, and it feels like they’re compromising on their vision. And the result is infuriating.

The song “Beyond” echoes the exact. same. concerns. as the first film’s big number In the legitimately stirring “How Far I’ll Go,” Moana is torn between her family and the sea. In Moana, it felt genuine: How does one grapple with such a difficult decision? In Moana 2, it’s exhausting: You already did this girl! You’re the ultimate voyager—the first time she went on a grand adventure, there were major stakes. But we’re just doing the same thing again, except apparently it’s a little bit trickier this time. There is not even the slightest tinge of doubt at any point throughout the film that Moana will not succeed in her mission. That makes the song—and, sadly, Auli’i Cravalho’s gorgeous vocals—irrelevant.

Then there’s the unbearable “What Could Be Better Than This?” which is the easiest candidate to leave on the cutting room floor. It’s a grating song that finds Moana attempting to impassion her crew—a crew that, mind you, is largely already excited for the adventure, leaving the song already redundant in execution. Then Loto (Rose Matafeo) gets a rapid-fire verse that’s Miranda-aping at its most banal, but because this isn’t Miranda, the pacing is all off. It sounds more like a barrage of discordant sounds merged with word vomit that even a sing-a-long version of the movie wouldn’t be able to keep up. And when you’ve got me vociferously longing for the man who wrote the worst Disney song ever (that’s “Scuttlebutt”), something has gone horribly wrong.

Don’t even get me started on “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” a genuinely embarrassing attempt to give Maui (Dwayne Johnson) another “You’re Welcome.” Hey, at least parents will be saved from listening to this soundtrack over and over.

This is a film that just treads the same waves made in the first film. Moana doesn’t face any new adversity that forces her to grow—she’s done all of this before. That’s a real disservice to one of the best characters Disney has ever produced. Cravalho does great work here, trying to infuse Moana with an interiority that the film simply isn’t interested in giving her. We didn’t learn anything about Moana in the sequel that we didn’t already know. Spoiler alert: She’s still good at voyaging. The end.

Perhaps the single most infuriating element of Moana 2 is that it teases the possibility of being something greater, by introducing an exciting new villain—only to reveal that she’s not a villain at all. Matangi (Awhimai Fraser) gets a grand, overdrawn, and mysterious introduction, and she’s captured Maui, a demi-god. The one thing the first film really struggled with was the lack of a villain, and Moana 2 seems to fix that, even giving Matangi a (surprisingly) fun song tempting Moana into getting comfortable with being lost and embracing danger.

This could—and frankly, should—be Matangi’s attempt to manipulate Moana, but instead, it’s genuine advice. Matangi turns out to not be a villain at all, and just someone who appears to waste time and give Moana advice she probably could have figured out herself. That’s not an interesting development. That’s wasting everyone’s time with a pointless diversion. The real villain, it’s revealed, is a bunch of lightning bolts. Feel free to insert your own “oohs” and “aahs” here.

I don’t hate Moana 2 because it’s boring—although it is. I hate it because it’s offensively lazy, wasting impressive voice talents and beloved characters in the quest for the almighty dollar. And there’s nothing almighty about this crap.