A recent skit from Saturday Night Live (SNL) featured Gladiator II and its star Paul Mescal in a musical version of that film; the gag’s premise builds off from the fact that musicals — Wicked and Moana 2 in particular — are big hits and, in the time of Christmas holidays, only musicals, or the obligatory Santa or holiday spirit-starring features, strike it big with the masses.

The send-up is one of the funnier ones in SNL’s recent history and its reasoning, though made in jest, is not far from reality. Take Moana 2 — the subject of this review — for instance. It is a big, colourful, entertaining family film with, arguably, more songs than the first part.

The back-to-back numbers, good as they are, become a tad tiring — which is often the case with musicals. Around the half-way mark, when Moana, now grown up, and her adventuring companions — the bonkers chicken Heihei, the pig Pua, the smart builder Loto, their village historian and Maui fanboy Moni, the grumpy elderly farmer Keke and the miniature pirate Kotu — find themselves in the clutches of the sorceress Matangi inside the belly of a sea monster, one realises that the film is seriously lacking in the story and the character development departments.

Maui, the demi-god, is relegated to the back of the plot and, despite being in centre frame for most of the run-time, so is Moana and the rest of the supporting cast (Heihei is great as always, by the way).

Moana 2 is a fine film that will please most even if it doesn’t live up to the first film’s sense of wonder and warmth

Maui’s and Moana’s growth is minimal from where Moana left off, and the big bad sea god Nalo, who doesn’t want humans to form a global community, is a lifeless threat. Moana finding a fabled island that Nalo has sunk is the gist of the film’s one-line story, by the way.

This sequel replaces the grand sense of wonder and the warmth of the original with big action sequences and an imposing soundtrack. Neither are lacklustre or low in quality, but they hardly measure up to the first film’s overall charm.

Moana 2 has three directors, David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand and Ledoux Mille, while Moana had two — John Musker and Ron Clements. The latter duo is known for The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog. One wonders how this film would have turned out in their hands.

Despite my criticism, this is a fine, though a tad unmagical, experience that cements the fact that carefully devised projects — ie big franchises with that rare quality control and lots of songs — really do work in the Christmas season.

What do you know, SNL was right all along!

Starring the voices of Dwayne

“The Rock” Johnson and Auli‘i Cravalho, Moana 2 is released by HKC and Disney and carries a “U” certificate. The film is designed to be for everyone, including cynics like me

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 15th, 2024