Moana 2 (2024)
★
This review may contain spoilers.
- Like this thought of Moana learning to forge her own path, even though from what I remember that is what the original movie is about, recontextualizing that through her being a way-finder is interesting, the only problem is right at the end of the movie they show a path leading her somewhere? I know that she is making the making the path as the necklace is symbolic for her but it is just really confusing to have the path form in front of her, it gives the impression that she is following a path already made for her.
- there are cool moments in the soundtrack and songs but there are some rougher moments, for starters the music feels a little more basic than normal, it comes down to them not being my cup of tea probably Auliʻi Cravalho is great, good singing voice, The rock has a singing number in this thing and it's weird, it feels off, is he off key? Too much auto tune? the visuals during that number are pretty cool, nice animation.
- there is a blob fish that reminds me of something out of chowder, and it was very funny and not because it was funny because it looked ridiculous.
- wish that the extra characters got more development and interesting things to do, Moni is a cool character I wish that she got more to do, we explore her character? same with Matangi she is a cool character and I wish that she got more to do here instead of just being a key to unlock a location and a idea for Moana to dwell on and then that's it, wish that we explore Siamea, considering she is the emotional core for the film she is severely underdeveloped. why is Maui in this film? like besides her is the secondary protagonist of the first film and he helps at the end, he doesn't really do much here, the speech he gives Moana is based on some infer relationship that we haven't really seen explored all that much, there is a line where he says "you helped me become the person I am today" but we don't really see that explored, kind of feels like he is only around because he is needed in the third act.
- typically whales in stories represent to me at least, freedom and self discovery, wish that this was explored a bit more as well.
- each new location has cool things about it but I wish that they were explored a bit more, like the underground thing that is so cool, but it's not really explore, the island that housed
- the jokes kind of bring the whole film to a grinding holt, wish that there was less humor but it is a kids movie.
- this is a weird one, the sequel expands on thoughts from the first movie, but then comes to the same conclusion about things, the movie starts the exploration characters but keeps it very surface level, the movie has a very very limited cast of like four people for most of it and that is cool, but we don't see anything explored during those moments, I'll leave it at this, there is a coconut that joins the crew about 2/4's the way through the movie, and he is the perfect example of the film, things are explored that deepen his character but not to deep we don't learn really what he is after he sacrifices himself for his captain, we don't learn why he decides to return, we don't see him wrestle with this heroic sacrifice that he preforms. it feels under developed, it's a microcosm for the entire movie because most of the movie's characters are like that.
