The original Moana (2016) was an unexpected lightning rod for Disney Animation. Coming out in a stacked year for animation, side-by-side with fellow Disney titan Zootopia (2016), the film was a massive success in its own right, grossing $687 million worldwide. In the four years since Disney+’s launch, Moana became one of the streaming service’s most popular titles with over 80 billion minutes watched worldwide.

Due to Moana’s success on streaming, the fate of the franchise’s follow-up was written as a  Disney+ original series as early as 2020 until pivoting into a feature. The unfortunate reality is Moana 2 (2024) has all the trappings of a development hell sequel: multiple directors, ambiguous marketing, and most noticeable of all, a disorganized story with way too many cooks in the kitchen, reminiscent of Disney’s other recent failures (Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023)).

Moana 2 picks up three years after the first film, as Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) treks to nearby islands to find others connected to the ocean. Her ancestor Tautai Vasa reveals to her in a vision that the storm god Nalo is responsible for so many losing connection to the ocean. Nalo sank the island of Motufetu, and if Moana doesn’t raise the island, her people will be lost forever.

On paper, the story is straightforward enough, but the way it’s laid out in the film never finds its rhythm to adequately establish the stakes. The film fumbles its introduction by shrouding the cultural angle in ambiguity, more than anyone in the film’s target demographic would be able to pick up on, and it takes less than 15 seconds to explain the mission itself. That isn’t to say the plot of Moana 2 is confusing– the film prioritizes its chips on the wrong squares when establishing investment, especially compared to the original.

The original Moana is a simple, if familiar, story, ushered in by the grace of John Musker and Ron Clements (Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997)) and delivered with the kind-hearted finesse and rhythms of renaissance Disney that so many people expect from the studio.

Moana 2’s directorial team all make their feature debuts (David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and co-writer Dana Ledoux Miller) and their respective ideas are all smashed together into a hodgepodge of rewritten exploits, leaving it all but obvious that the plot is several remnants of a TV show.

The TV show remnants are most obvious in all of the cast’s new crew members, whose involvement never benefits the story and structure from feeling too cluttered to latch onto. There’s Rose Matafeo as Loto, the New Zealand-accented, fast-talking shiphand, Hualālai Chung as Moni, a crew member with a fondness for demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), and David Fane as Kele–elderly, grumpy, and restricted below deck for most of the film.

With all four members of the crew (not including Maui), along with Moana’s pet rooster Heihei (Alan Tudyk) and pig Pua (an uncredited Frank Welker), you start to realize you’re going to need a bigger boat to provide the necessary screen time for all of these characters to justify their inclusion. Although everyone is giving solid vocal performances no matter how big or small their part, the script doesn’t hold itself accountable to bear their weight while staying roughly the same archetype as its predecessor.

The same can be said for Maui, the character to which Johnson brings the same spry machismo. The writing, in terms of structure and comedy, is hopelessly outmatched by the original. A majority of the dynamic between Moana and Maui that was so welcome in the original film is lost, outside of a touching scene/fun song towards the end of the second act where Maui encourages Moana to finish the mission she started. (“Can I Get a Chee Hoo?”)

As for Maui’s humor, it’s mostly groaners and self-aware in-jokes that take the audience out of the moment. In my packed Wednesday night audience, I can’t remember more than a few polite chuckles over the disinterested hoards of children fidgeting in their seats.

The music, too, is hopelessly outshined by the original. For every family itching to remove the earworms that were “How Far It Goes” and “You’re Welcome,” I’d be curious to see if anyone taps their feet to any of its sequel’s songs. Outside of “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?,” which helps break up the monotony of the film’s third act lull, the only real shining spot is Matafeo’s rap verse in “What Could Be Better Than This?” which is genuinely impressive.

That’s not to say Moana 2 doesn’t have aspects worth complimenting. The animation, as audiences come to expect from Disney, is top-notch and acts as a notable next step for the studio. The vocal performances are all representative of everyone putting their best foot forward when telling this story, and the visual energy and style all feel part of the original’s wheelhouse.

The rest, unfortunately, shows the many pitfalls that come with adapting a property from a prospective television series to a feature film. When too many creatives find themselves elbowing to establish direction, the end result looks great but lacks the fluidity that made the original Moana so refreshing.

Moana 2 will undoubtedly satisfy those looking to go in for a new big-budget animated spectacle around the holidays, but I’m doubtful that the film’s legacy will ever match the original. With the potential for another sequel on the horizon, only time will tell if Disney will prioritize restructuring the story as a means of strengthening its franchise.

How far will it go? No one knows.

Review Courtesy of Landon Defever

Feature Image Credit to Disney via IMDB