Moana 2

So, guys, we've arrived at the newest Disney Classic and one that I honestly wasn't very excited for, Moana 2. The reason I wasn't excited for this was just due to the fact that the Disney Classics have really been letting me down for the last few years. Strange World was an absolute disaster in my opinion because of how boring it was and how cringeworthy it was too, and Wish was a film I was really hyped for, but it was just another huge disappointment as well. Not only that, but the Disney Classics that have been sequels over the last few years were huge disappointments as well like Ralph Breaks The Internet and Frozen 2. And, like I usually do whenever a new movie comes out, I wasn't hearing great things about the movie from critics before seeing it. And so, in the end, yeah, if I'm being honest, it was pretty much what I thought it would be. I didn't think this was very good, but I guess it was somewhat better and somewhat more entertaining than something like Strange World or Wish, but I don't think that necessarily means it was good. I actually saw this movie on the day of release, but I'm only doing my review for it now. Also, since this has been out for ages now, I'm going full spoilers from the beginning. So, what's the story? Moana is currently searching for more islands beyond Motunui and trying to find other people, but is having no luck with it. One day though, she's sent some kind of vision that tells her about some special island that could possibly connect every island in the entire ocean. She decides to form a crew and try to find it. This leads to them meeting up with Maui again and all of them trying to find it and set everything right again. That's as far as I'll go with the plot, but, if you've seen the film, you know there's a lot more that happens. So, I guess for this review, I'll go over the problems I had and then go over the stuff that I did think was good. So, for starters with the problems, the first of which is the same as I've had with a lot of these movies for the last few years and that's that the pacing in the film isn't very good. Unlike the first movie where I felt it really took its time and did a great job showing the lives of the characters so we understood where they all came from, this one sorta had the same problem as Frozen 2 where it just throws you into it immediately and doesn't really take much time with itself, so the adventure that the characters go on feels like it starts a bit too quickly. Speaking of Frozen 2, I felt like this movie had similar problems to that film where, when waching the first movie, you can tell that it was supposed to be one movie with no real further elaboration, so, having this one act like a lot of the new elements they try to set up were always there just makes it feel really forced. Also, while I liked the idea that the community in Motunui was expanded in this film and we got to know some new characters from it, which is honestly something I wish the first movie did a bit more, the way a lot of it gets set up in the film was another thing that felt super forced. For one, we saw in the trailers that Moana gets a crew in the movie, and a lot of their personalities felt really forced in your face and kinda over the top too, and the way they supposedly develop in the film is just felt unnatural and out of nowhere in certain cases. The whole thing of Moni being this fanboy of Maui, Loto being an eccentric ship builder and Kele being a grumpy old man all just felt like standard personalities for them with not realy much more too them. I also just didn't find them at all memorable. Spekaing of new characters, I thought the inclusion of Moana's younger sister in this was really unnecessary. I guess I kinda liked their dynamic, but it was just weird that she wasn't even in the movie that much so it made her kinda pointless. I get she was sorta one of Moana's main motivations for doing what she was doing, espiecally when they were inside that cavern, but still. Speaking of that cavern scene, that was another weird part for me. It felt similar to when Moana and Maui went to Lalotai in the first movie, but where that scene at least help get Maui his hook back and gave us some information on Maui himself, this scene just felt pretty pointless by comparison. I know they get to where they need to go from there, but I feel like there could have been another way to do that. I also found it really odd when Moana meets that bat lady there and she sorta acts like she's gonna be one of the main villains of the film, but then after she sorta helps them, she just disappears from the film and we never see her again until the credit scene. I also feel like the humour didn't really land for me here, especially the pop culture reference scenes. If you remember Maui doing that in the first movie, you'll know what I mean, but where it sorta made sense there and wasn't used much, here, not only do they do it more, but the whole thing of other characters doing it didn't make any sense to me, particularly the whole part when Moni did it. The comedy in general as well didn't really do it for me either, especially with Hei Hei. I thought he was really funny in the first movie, but I found him sorta annoying here. The ending also didn't really make a whole lotta sense to me. For one, it was kinda set up weird with all of them needing to pull up an island from the ocean and, I dunno, leading up to it, even though they spoke about doing it occasionally, it didn't feel like they did it enough for me to really get it. Also, after it does happen, I thought it was pretty interesting how Maui had to give up his demigod powers, but then they immediately reverse it with no real explaination or consequence, which made that feel pointless and like a real cop-out moment. After that, the whole scene where we see all the ships coming to the island didn't make a lot of sense to me since it just made me wonder how a lot of them where they were when the final battle was happening and other things like that. So, I'm not gonna lie, even though I sorta expected all of this from the movie, the one thing I was expecting to be great was the songs and, yeah, there were some that were good, especially the "Beyond" song, which is honestly a song I've listened to a lot since it was released on YouTube, and I also really enjoyed the "We're Back" song too. But, other than that, the rest are kinda forgettable and nowhere near as good as they were in the first movie. So, overall, just like a lot of the Disney and Pixar films from the last few years, I really didn't like this movie, it was just another huge diappointment. Not all of them since there have been some really good films like Inside Out 2 and Encanto, but, this was just another huge disappointment. Unlike some other films though like Strange World and Lightyear, which were just so boring and bad that don't ever want to see them again, this is something I actually wouldn't mind seeing again for the sake of it and I didn't hate it. I did enjoy it more than some of the others and I do already like a lot of these characters anyway. So, I guess this is another one you should check out if you're interested. And so, everyone, those are my thoughts on Moana 2. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.