After taking a month off to recharge my batteries, which mostly involved playing retro games and reading Sonic the Hedgehog comics, I’m back just in time for a double feature of Dwayne Johnson vehicles with a number at the end of them! I’ve been a huge fan of Dwayneson The Rockson Johnson for many years, but his misguided attempts at joining the fledgling DCEU left him in perhaps the lowest point in his career since making The Tooth Fairy. Hopefully the fact that he not only still gets roles in big tent pole movies, but that studios are willing to put two of them up against each other at the same time bodes well for his future endeavors, and hopefully they are great movies as well. Let’s find out!!

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Moana 2

Moana 2 is owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller

After saving her island and calming the seas, Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) has spent the last few years exploring the various islands around her in hopes of finding more people to connect with. Evidence is rather scarce, however, and it seems that there’s another god throwing another tantrum that is causing the various peoples of the world to stay far apart, and Moana is once again called to adventure for the fate of the world. Maui (Dwayne Johnson) is sadly unable to join her on this quest as he’s stuck dealing with the demigod Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), so Moana puts together a crew of villagers (Hualālai Chung, Rose Matafeo, and David Fane) who she hopes are up to the task which only looks more daunting as the stakes get ever higher.

When I wrote my review of the first Moana, I lamented the fact that it was stuck being a simple movie and couldn’t expand into something broader in scope to make the most of its interesting mythology. Oh, how naïve I was back then. In so many ways, the first film was a product of an entirely different world and a media landscape that has been turned entirely on its head. In 2016, the idea of Disney putting this kind of budget and star power into a TV show was laughable. Nowadays, it’s almost quaint to see one of their biggest money-makers staying firmly in one space and not being spread across a dozen different projects, though I guess we’ll see if they get a guest spot in whatever Kingdom Hearts game Nomura is cooking up next. Still, this movie didn’t escape the New Disney Machine unscathed, and a lot of the charm of the first film is lost in an attempt to turn this into yet another franchise for the Mouse House. In that sense, it’s not just fighting one uphill battle; it’s fighting two at the same time, as it already has many of the obvious problems you run into while making a sequel while also shouldering the responsibility of being a lead in to more Moana content in the future. The end result is a movie that pantomimes the beats of the original film without any of its heart; so, much like Te Kā, it’s a shadow of its former self as it stumbles to find what’s gone missing. First and foremost are the character arcs, as we’ve already overcome all of Moana’s struggles. In the first film, her story was personal and relatable as she was in opposition to the rest of her culture’s values and had to struggle to find who she truly was while going on this journey; even failing at critical junctures due to shortcomings in her character. She grew over the course of that first movie, which was great, but now that we’re post-hero’s journey and the lack of any character development is the gaping black hole that sucks all the tension and drama out of this story. She’s on another epic quest, but it hardly feels like one because there’s no adversity. There are challenges, sure, but nothing that isn’t resolved by acrobatics and proper swimming technique, and without any moments of doubt, even when Moana fails at something, the conclusion feels almost inevitable. Perhaps a radically different quest for her to go on would have given her new depths to plumb, but instead we’re just going through the motions of the first one and what few things are new are, at best, a lateral move as they fail to elevate the material or drag this bore of a storyline out of the mud. She’s got a proper crew this time which would have been a refreshing change of pace from the first film, but they aren’t particularly interesting, and it also means that Maui gets less screen time, which is a shame as he is still the most fun character in this series. The songs sound okay, but they’re little more than echoes of the original film’s soundtrack and only add to the hollow feel of everything. The most interesting development in this movie is the introduction of other gods, as it’s a genuine elevation of the stakes, with Matangi being the standout of the entire movie. She has an interesting dynamic as her allegiances remain ambiguous throughout, and she has the only song on the soundtrack that doesn’t sound like a half-hearted rehash. Unfortunately, even this bright spot is marred by the film’s ultimate goal of being an advertisement for future installments, and so it fails to integrate naturally with the story they are trying to tell here. It’s disappointing how little of an identity this has given how much personality we got in the first film, and if you’re spending the entire running time begging me to stick around for the sequel, why am I even bothering with this one at all? Perhaps everything I have to complain about here is just an old man yelling at clouds and that the target audience will adore this much like they did the first one. I wouldn’t even call it a huge betrayal, as there’s just enough humor, action, and solid animation to keep you occupied the whole way through. For those reasons, I’m going to give it the most lukewarm of passes imaginable, but this franchise has spent all its goodwill on this mediocre outing and is gonna have to really step up its game for the next one if it wants to be more than just another bland franchise to add to the pile.