My Review of Moana 2 (2024)

 

Written by Jared Bush And Dana Ledoux Miller And Bek Smith

Directed by David Derrick Jr. And Jason Hand And Dana Ledoux Miller

Moana: "Still not a princess."

Maui: "A lot of people would disagree."

It's interesting what a twist of fate can have. Originally this was supposed to be a miniseries for Disney+ but for some reason it was decided to make it into a theatrical release. That was a decision that turned out well.

Since the events of the first movie, Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) has become determined to find more people by exploring all the islands near Motunui. It's not been a successful venture for her and she's also missing Maui (Dwayne Johnson). Of course their paths would cross but not until halfway into the movie.

In the meantime, Maui had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle of his own. It turned out that helping Moana in the previous movie had consequences and he was now captured by Matangi (Awhimai Fraser). She's an enforcer of storm God, Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea'i), the main villain of the movie. 

Moana's mission for this movie also meant preventing the extinction of her people after an encounter with ancestor, Tautai Vasa (Gerald Ramsay). This also meant assembling a crew, which included Loto (Rose Matafeo), Kele (David Fane) and Moni (Hualālai Chung). Oh and there was the return of Heihei (Alan Tudyk) and pet pig, Pua.

Over the course of the movie, we had Moana and her crew reunited with Maui (Moni really was a fanboy). There was the journey that involved working with the coconut baddies from the first movie and Maui having to use his powers to help Moana lift Motufetu enough for the latter to touch.

It wasn't too surprising that Matangi was the one who was trying to stop the humans from reconnecting with ocean. By the end of this movie, that connection had been made with a celebration in Moana's honour to boot.

- A mid credit with Matangi and Nalo seemed to be setting a third movie that will happen due to this one getting over a billion dollars at the box office.

- Moana had a younger sister named Simba (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) while Dwayne Johnson's daughters and mother's had minor roles in the movie.

- Standout music: We're Back, Beyond, My Wish For You, What Could Be Better Than This? and We Know The Way.

- Chronology: Three years since the events of the first movie.

Moana 2 did actually work rather well as a sequel, in spite of the fact it wasn't intended to be a theatrical one. The new characters/villains are fun, the songs are good and there's clearly an intent for another one down the line.

Rating: 8 out of 10