Ohoriginally planned as a television series, now a feature film, Moana 2 is the sequel to Disney's 2016 hit family animation Moana, and it's actually a vacuum-sealed slice of digital IP content, a joyful ChatGPT iteration of love, laughter, and belonging.
Hawaiian actor Auli'i Cravalho returns to play the role of Moana, the teenage heroine of a Polynesian island. In the first film, she was chosen by her exploring ancestors and the mysterious forces of the ocean to restore the natural order of things, disrupted by the swaggering but lovable demigod Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson. Today, a few years later, Moana is a well-respected young woman on the island, admired and emulated by the locals whom Maui calls “Mo-wannabes”.
We find Moana on a mission to find other islands and other peoples of the ocean who have been scattered and oppressed by the evil god Nalo in order to keep them divided; she returns to her homeland with the sensational news that Motufetu Island has been submerged along with all its inhabitants by the terrible curse of Nalo, and if they can somehow raise it up, it will restore all his loved ones in their legitimately united state.
Moana must therefore continue another of her quests, with the more or less reliable help of Maui, displaying his animated tattoos as before. Also present are his friend Loto (voiced by Rose Matafeo), the angry old farmer Kele (David Fane), whose farming skills and resources are supposed to come in handy during the trip, and Moni (Hualalai Chung), a big goofball. a guy, almost Maui's mini-me, who maybe has a crush on a cert-PG friend for Moana. They once again encounter the little coconut-shaped, slightly Minion-shaped marauders, the Kakamora, with whom Moana is this time able to make common cause, and the evil “bat lady” Matangi (voiced by artist Maori Awhimai Fraser). which appears and disappears in the action perhaps more briefly than it should have done.
It's all innocuous enough, but strangely lacking in anything truly passionate or sincere, all handled with frictionless fluidity and algorithmic efficiency.
