Moana 2 adds one good song to the Disney canon, but not much else

Moana grew on me. I can’t say I loved Disney’s Pacific Islander musical at first blush — when it originally came out in 2016, it felt vibrant, yet overstuffed. But as the film’s songs permeated the zeitgeist, I returned to the movie with an ear for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rousing, rat-a-tat lyrics and the deep history vibrating through Opetaia Foa‘i’s drum-backed Samoan- and Tokelauan-language tunes. And then, it all cohered. As with any great musical, the film was the soundtrack.

Moana 2 may grow on me as well — frankly, my feelings for it could only go up from where they started. It’s been less than a day since I saw the long-awaited sequel (Disney screened the film for press just 17 hours ago), but unlike with the overwhelming let-me-hear-that-again rush of experiencing Moana for the first time, I don’t have the lingering gut feeling that I’ve missed something. In the end, Moana 2 is a vehicle for one banger, a feel-good throwback, and a few songs we’ll never talk about again, which doesn’t feel like enough for a brand-new Moana.

Most musicals don’t get sequels. Why would they, when they can be restaged, rewatched, or replayed? The ones that do get the sequel treatment generally either lean on jukebox bona fides, to some success (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, now with more ABBA!) or immediately flop into nonexistence. (RIP Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge.) But Moana 2 averts disaster, thanks to a new songwriting duo that throws everything at the wall.

Abigail Barlow, a pop singer-songwriter who has hit big on TikTok, and Emily Bear, a Grammy- and Emmy-winning piano prodigy and protégé of Quincy Jones, succeed Miranda with youthful energy and a reverence for the previous film. (Which makes sense: Both women would have been in their teens when Moana hit theaters.) But whereas Miranda’s songs drove the original’s emotional arc, Barlow and Bear’s tracks race to keep up with a disjointed script that takes literal shortcuts to get Moana from her South Pacific home island, Motunui, to a mystical underwater mountain ravaged by a god’s curse.

Conceived as a series for Disney Plus, then eventually reworked into a feature film, the sequel has more in common with the direct-to-video output of the now defunct Disneytoon Studios than it has with the unwieldy sequel ambition of Frozen 2. (Sidebar: “Into the Unknown” good!) I don’t hold the pivot from TV to film against Walt Disney Animation — after all, David Lynch turned a scrapped show into Mulholland Drive. But in relation to a damn near musical masterpiece, Moana 2 comes off like Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, a sidequel with more of the same and a few minor new additions. (Although with somehow less character work than Disney’s Aladdin and the King of Thieves?)

Like those DTV sequels, Moana 2 adds tons of new characters, all of whom are introduced in “We’re Back,” a jaunty substitute for Moana’s opening number, “Where You Are.” When we pick back up with teenage chieftain Moana (Auli‘i Cravalho), she’s the star of Motunui, and everyone in the village is fawning over her, complete with cosplay from a group of Moana-lookalike kids Maui (Dwayne Johnson) casually dubs “Moanabees.” But Hamilton star Christopher Jackson is decidedly not back to lend his vocals to Moana’s dad, Tui (voiced by Temuera Morrison in dialogue scenes), and with him goes a narrative point of view that sets the stage for the new movie. “Where You Are” set the stakes for Moana’s adventure beyond the reef in Moana. “We’re Back” is a victory lap for Disney Plus’ most-streamed movie of all time.

Barlow and Bear nail one thing: the foregrounding of Moana and Cravalho in the music. Moana anchors the ensemble-driven “We’re Back,” and later takes over lead vocals from Miranda on a redux of “We Know the Way” from the first movie. She’s the Wayfinder now, Oceania’s true leader, and she has the lung capacity to prove it. Her big song, “Beyond,” feels like a totally serviceable pop hit for Cravalho, who belts hard enough to ensure the track’s place on Disney Radio for all eternity.

The movie’s odd pacing dampens the effect of Cravalho’s powerhouse vocals. Screenwriters Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller spend so much time with Moana talking about how she needs to set sail (again) before she finally sets sail (again) that “Beyond” feels like a bit of a chore. And the story rarely supports Moana’s empowerment the way the music does. She’s a mortal pitted against godly activity, and she can’t actually make waves (ahem) against her supernatural enemies. So she’s constantly screwing up, begging the ocean for help, or learning new lessons from characters whose power she can’t touch. But she’s very good at singing about being powerful.

The big surprise of Moana 2 is a song that feels completely detached from pretty much everything else around it in terms of style or story. Partway through her expedition, Moana meets magical bat-lady Matangi (Awhimai Fraser, the voice of Elsa in the Māori edition of Frozen), who has all the makings of a classic Disney villain. Matangi’s number, “Get Lost,” is a fiery pop tune with a Motown spine, which Fraser wails like there’s no tomorrow.

Foa‘i, working again with Moana composer Mark Mancina, delivers the other highs with more tracks that bring Polynesian language and culture to the spotlight. A scene where Moana and some village kids perform a kind of Māori haka is a treat, as are the occasional wide-scoped scenes of sea exploration, scored with vocals from Foa‘i’s daughter and fellow Te Vaka bandmate Olivia Foa‘i. In a movie that feels constricted in close-ups and boxed-in set pieces, the group’s music gives Moana 2 a much-needed epic quality.

There are… devastating clunkers. “What Could Be Better Than This?” is a hyperactive group song that finds Moana and her new ship crew singing at double speed and acting like they’re haunted by the Smile demon. At one point, Moana’s brainy engineer pal Loto (Rose Matafeo) lays down some quick-fire lyrics, an attempt to imitate Miranda’s rap-infused work, that pound so hard they turn to pure mush. Even ardent fans of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” may experience brain bleed during this relentless number.

And the less we say of Maui’s new song, “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?”, the better. “You’re Welcome” is looking more and more like a minor miracle for Dwayne Johnson, who descends into sub-Rex Harrison levels of speak-singing for a sporty Jock James chant masquerading as a song. When the synths kicked in, I tapped out.

I ultimately know nothing about how Moana 2 was made, nor do I really care what it took to make a TV show into a movie: I’m here for what a musical can deliver. In the case of a Disney original, that’s dynamic vocal and instrumental performances, staged with animated imagination. But even the recordings on Moana 2 sounded a bit tinny, a bit flat, when they need to capture the vastness of Moana’s ocean and the uphill battle she faces when she’s going toe-to-toe with a god over her people’s legacy.

I hope Moana 2 grows on me, the same way Moana did. (For what it’s worth, all the 6-year-olds in my audience stood up and applauded at the end, so what do I know?) But if Disney wants to do the rare musical threequel — and based on this sequel, a Moana 3 could easily follow the planned live-action adaptation of the original movie — it needs to give a pair like Barlow and Bear the same freedom and canvas as a guy like Miranda, instead of demanding more of the same. As Moana would say, go beyond.

Moana 2 debuts in theaters on Nov. 27.