What a trip.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Moana 2” is a brightly colored and heartwarming high-seas adventure with a terrific percussive score and a bounty of infectious original songs, beautiful messaging about honoring ancestral traditions and the benefits of community and teamwork, and some lovely voice performances from the talented cast.
It’s also almost disturbingly bizarre during a middle segment that will have you feeling like someone dipped your popcorn in a cup of Ayahuasca. For a time, “Moana 2” seems more fixated with creating memorably weird imagery than telling a story, but it regains its footing in a third act filled with genuine emotion and a spiritually rousing finale.
Some of the images in this PG-rated adventure might be too intense for the little ones, but this is a solid work of family entertainment and a worthy sequel to the Oscar-nominated 2016 hit that establishes the title character as one of the most admirable protagonists in the modern Disney canon. Moana isn’t technically a princess because she’s the daughter of a Polynesian chief, but that is also true on a larger scale in that she’s not some old-fashioned belle waiting for a man to rescue her. She’s too busy being the hero for that silliness.
Directed by the team of David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, with music from Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, as well as Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i, this is a visually stunning work with a lush and immersive sound.
The sequel picks up three years after the events of the original, with Auliʻi Cravalho once again bringing her impressive singing voice and equally effective voice-acting talents to the role of Moana, who is now about 19 years old and regularly embarks on seafaring missions to find proof that the inhabitants of her home island of Motunui aren’t alone in this world. After receiving a spiritual summons of sorts from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana sets out on a mission to find the lost island of Motofetu and break the curse of the storm god known as Nalo, who wants to keep the peoples of the world isolated from each other. What a jerk that Nalo is!
For such an enormous wayfinding mission, you need a crew, so Moana assembles quite the quirky team, including:
Loto (Rose Matafeo), an eccentric but resourceful engineer with an indefatigable spirit.Kele (David Fane), an elder crop farmer who will grow food for the travelers and isn’t happy about having to come along — but then again, he’s never happy about anything.Moni (Hualālai Chung), a strapping and idealistic young fellow who is like a human Wikipedia when it comes to expertise on the history and island, and now has a chance to live an adventure and not merely recite the folklore.
Also along for the ride are Moana’s animal companions, the wacky rooster Heihei and the lovable pig Pua, and that’s our cue for a couple of corny but chuckle-inducing “bacon and eggs” jokes. (Don’t worry, nobody becomes breakfast in the story.)
As for Dwayne Johnson’s shapeshifting, wisecracking and preening demigod Maui, he’s on the sidelines and dealing with some issues of his own for a good portion of the story, but eventually reunites with Moana and her crew as they team up with the Kakamora, those diminutive but ferocious, coconut-armored warriors, to break Nalo’s curse. We’re also introduced to a character named Matangi, voiced by Awhimai Fraser, who at first seems like a classic Disney villain but just might have more complex layers than that.
Musical highlights include the powerful “Beyond,” with Moana singing with great passion about the challenge of literally taking an oceanic path that’s riskier and more challenging than ever before, and the gloriously upbeat and hopeful “We’re Back.” (Less effective: Dwayne Johnson sorta singing/rapping on the underwhelming pep talk number, “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” On the plus side, Johnson’s overall voice acting here is superior to many of the phone-it-in live action performances he’s delivered in films such as the recent “Red One.”)
Temuera Morrison and Nicole Scherzinger are welcome returnees as Moana’s parents, while Rachel House carries emotional depth as Moana’s late maternal grandmother Tala, who lives on as a spirit who visits Moana when Moana needs her most, and Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda is a delight as Moana’s precious toddler sister, Simea. “Moana 2” is a sparkling family adventure with an impeccably timed release, arriving in theaters at a time for bonding with those closest to us and giving thanks for what the gods have given us.