On the fictional South Pacific island of Motunui, there is now a kind of tween girl named “Moanabe” (pronounced “Mo-wannabe”). These eager, sometimes awkward young ladies portray a queen also known to the rest of the world: the brave sailor Moana, teenage heroine of the 2016 hit film of the same name. After Moana (voiced again by Auli’i Cravalho) saves her people from famine saved by lifting an ancient curse on the goddess of nature, she has evolved from the eldest daughter of the island tribe’s leader to her father’s comrade-in-arms. Chief. Children look up to her, village elders seek her advice, and her return from a three-day solo trip to a nearby island is celebrated as if it were a major national holiday.

Moana 2 is something of a Moanabe, eight years younger than its hugely popular predecessor (Moana gained worldwide acclaim and more than $600 million worldwide and remains a fan favorite on streaming) and is determined to restore, if not its unique charm, then at least its most recognizable gestures and stylistic choices. Scene after scene, there’s nothing you can’t enjoy about this lushly animated ode to exploration, teamwork, and courage, especially if you’re a parent of young children looking for a fun family outing. But for all his verve and polish, Moana 2 In a subtle but unmistakable way, it feels more like a consumer product than the first film. (Given that both were heavily promoted Disney releases, it’s perhaps more accurate to say that the sequel wears its inevitable status as a mass-produced consumer product less lightly than the original.) The little details and strange character quirks , which distinguished the first Moana have been sanded down or, worse, recycled as nostalgic callbacks.

Part of the problem is that, as in every other film in such a large series, the title character can’t help but start from the position of overdog. When we first meet her, the slightly older Moana – about three years have passed since the previous chapter in the world of the films – has none of the self-doubt and insecurity that plagued her during her first adventure. She is a self-confident, idealistic, powerful young woman – a state that, while certainly optimal for her, is not particularly conducive to satisfactory character development for the audience. This time, instead of watching our heroine gain the competence and knowledge she needs to accomplish an extremely difficult task, we are presented with an almost superheroic protagonist, a kind of Moses who already knows that they share the waters and between can walk with them (although in her case she does it mainly to entertain her little sister.

True, Moana will later encounter obstacles that force her to tap into even deeper reserves of that all-important Disney hero fuel: belief in herself. But now that she’s with a demigod, the shape-shifting trickster deity Maui (as in Dwayne Johnson’s original (voiced) is friends, Moana has a kind of get out of jail card. It’s not hard to pull one off deus ex machina Salvation if you’re a real one deus who regularly exchanges high-fives with the sea.

Once again, the sea voyage that is the focus of the film is set in motion by a battle between the natural and supernatural worlds. This time, an angry god has placed a curse on a distant island that must be lifted so that the world’s scattered peoples can find each other. Moana is called upon to take on this dangerous task by her pioneering ancestors, including her late grandmother Tala (Rachel House). This time, at her parents’ urging, Moana takes a crew with her, an unlikely trio of misfits: Moni (Huālalai Chung), a teenager who idolizes Maui; Loto (Rose Matafeo), a quirky (and possibly slightly queer-coded) teenage girl who is a master with tools; and Kele (David Fane), a moody old farmer who hates the sea and can’t even swim. They’re accompanied by not one, but two cute animal pals who also return from the first film: Moana’s mentally disabled chicken Hei Hei (Alan Tudyk) and her pet pig Pua.

As the travelers’ raft approaches the cursed island of Motufetu, wild things happen. It turns out that it is a kind of floating mountain, the shell of a giant seashell, in which the travelers are trapped for a while. Pinocchio-Style. There’s an extensive encounter with the Kakamora, a species that Moana also met last time – they’re basically sentient coconuts that are animated in a Minion-like manner and whose specialty is piracy on the high seas. Later, the crew meets with the mysterious underworld goddess Matangi (Awhimai Fraser).

This middle section is too action-packed to be fully coherent; There’s a near-capsize or other encounter with shipping disaster in every other scene, and the antagonists keep piling up. But the onboard banter is often funny, and the setting is always full of bold, warm colors and fun visual ideas. For example, Maui’s many tattoos (still) have the ability to move around his body like animated figures, with their gestures and interactions sometimes providing commentary on the main story. When new characters are introduced, such as a grumpy-looking neon green blobfish that secretes a powerful but non-lethal neurotoxin, the designs are reliably clever – but no creature sticks with you quite like the bling-hoarding crab voiced by Jemaine Clement has Moana (who only returns for a brief non-musical cameo this time).

Moana 2 Directed by the team of David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, all making their feature film debuts, from a screenplay by Miller and an original Moana Screenwriter Jared Bush. The project was intended to be realized as a TV series, a lineage that may remain visible in this crowded middle section.

Although it shows some symptoms of secondary inflammation, Moana 2 appears to have been created with enthusiasm, love and impressive attention to detail by a group of talented artists, many of whom have cultural roots in the South Pacific. The score was once again composed by Mark Mancina in collaboration with Samoa-born, New Zealand-raised songwriter Opetaia Foa’i, but this time without the assistance of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote or co-wrote the most memorable songs of the 2016 film . The Grammy-winning composer team Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear (The unofficial Bridgerton musical) contribute songs that fit well into their dramatic locations without ever leaving as deep an impression as “How Far I’ll Go”, “Shiny”, “You’re Welcome” or “We Know the Way” ( a rousing one). Seafarers’ hymn, mostly sung in Samoan and Tokelau. The new film’s big numbers are virtuosoly performed by the golden-throated Cravalho and pleasantly sung by The Rock, whose incarnation of the cocky but needy Maui may be the finest work of his wrestling-acting and re-wrestling career. But I would have been hard-pressed to hum a single tune on the soundtrack half an hour after leaving the theater.

A mid-credit teaser unsubtly suggests that there may be another ancient myth-related crisis for Moana and her crew to deal with in the future. And true to Disney’s recently established tradition of recycling its animated classics as live-action classics…less than classics, a remake of the first film is already in the works, also starring Johnson and set to hit theaters in summer 2026, called The Young One Polynesian adventurer (please don’t call her, as she grimly points out in the new film, a princess) may still be dreaming of how far she’ll go, but the audience has to be his make your own decision based on whether you feel like dating someone else Drive.