Moana 2 Review – Vacuum Packed Disney Sea Adventure That Will Leave You Cold | Film

ISLANDoriginally planned as a TV series, now a feature film, Moana 2 is the sequel to Disney’s 2016 grand family animation Moana, and it truly is a vacuum-packed slice of digital IP content, a cheerful ChatGPT iteration of love, laughter and belonging.

Hawaiian-born actor Auli’i Cravalho returns to voice the role of Moana, the teenage heroine of a Polynesian island. In the first film, she was chosen by her wayfinding ancestors and the mysterious forces of the sea to restore the natural order of things, disturbed by the dizzy but somehow adorable demigod Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson. Now it’s a few years later, and Moana is a highly respected young woman on the island, admired and imitated by the female inhabitants whom Maui calls “Mo-wannabes”.

We find Moana on a mission to find other islands and other people in the sea that have been scattered and oppressed by the evil god Nalo to keep them apart; she returns to her homeland with the startling news that the island of Motufetu has been submerged with all its inhabitants by Nalo’s terrible curse, and if they can somehow raise it, this will restore all her relatives to their rightfully united state .

So Moana has to go on another of her quests, with the more or less reliable help of Maui, flaunting as before her animated tattoos. Also nearby are her friend Loto (voiced by Rose Matafeo), the elderly, poor farmer Kele (David Fane), whose farming skills and resources will supposedly come in handy on the journey, and Moni (Hualalai Chung), a big fool. dude, almost Maui’s mini-me who might have a cert-PG friend crush on Moana. They once again encounter the faintly Minion-like little coconut-shaped marauders, Kakamora, with whom Moana is this time able to make common cause, and the evil “bat-lady” villain Matangi (voiced by Maori artist Awhimai Fraser ), who appears and disappears into the action more briefly, perhaps, than she should have.

It’s all innocuous enough, but oddly lacking anything truly passionate or heartfelt, all managed with frictionless smoothness and algorithmic efficiency.