The sequel to the Disney movie “Moana” is now in theaters and was somewhat boring to many Disney fans. “Moana 2” received a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a 7.1/10 review on IMDb, and an audience rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. Even though the film has mediocre ratings, it is the ninth highest grossing movie of 2024. It crossed $400 million at the global box office after being released for only six days. Additionally, “Moana 2” set the record for the largest Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday sales. This beat the previous record set by another Disney movie, “Frozen 2”.
“Moana 2” follows the young princess Moana’s journey to the far seas after she receives an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors. One major reason the movie didn’t receive good attention was because of its poor songwriting.The first film had spectacular songs with the help of the Broadway actor Lin-Manuel Miranda. He had involvement with hit songs like “How Far I’ll Go” and “We Know The Way”. Because Miranda decided not to come back for “Moana 2,” the songs aren’t big hits. The new songs may be catchy, but they don’t live up to the original film’s soundtrack.
The sequel has many of the same cast members like Auli’i Cravalho who plays Princess Moana, Dwayne Johnson who plays Maui, and Rachel House who plays Gramma Tala. Even with all the same cast members, “Moana 2” just didn’t live up to the hype. Many people believe this because the sequel was never actually supposed to exist. It was supposed to be a TV series on the streaming platform Disney+. Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, decided to turn it into a movie after watching the early footage, thinking it deserved to be on the big screen instead.
“Moana 2” was mediocre because of its messy plotline, boring soundtrack, and being underwhelming in general. The biggest reason why this film was seen as mediocre is because of how amazing the first “Moana” was. It was hard for it to be good while living under the expectations of the original film. “Moana 2” wasn’t a groundbreaking film or a huge disappointment, it was simply an ordinary movie.
