The original Moana film is, in my opinion, one of the best Disney movies of the past 10 years. Its music is catchy, its story is interesting, and its characters are lively. All of these aspects that made Moana so great are completely and totally absent from Moana 2. 

This film, to me, is the final nail in the coffin for Disney: their admission that they don’t care about their audience, making good movies, or anything other than profit. And unfortunately, I think Moana 2 is just the beginning of this downward spiral.

My least favorite aspect of this film is its marketability. This movie reeks of plastic. Each person that was introduced was clearly designed with the idea of a toy tie-in in mind. 

So many of them could easily be the same mold as already made Moana or Maui figures, and it’s just so noticeable. Every character feels hollow and uninteresting because their only role in the movie is to make a funny clip to post on TikTok or to become a doll that isn’t gonna last any kid more than a few months of play.

And can we talk about the music? Oh my god it sucked! It was genuinely just bad most of the time, and the times that it wasn’t, it was because they were literally just re-using or sampling tracks from the first one. I hate hate hate to be one of those people that says “I could make this,” but these lyrics feel like something I would’ve written, and that is not a good thing. 

Arguably the worst part about the lyrics was how painfully on the nose they are. “Keep playin’ safe, you’ll never know/The rules are ours to break/Come on, babe/It’s time to get lost” or “Who are ya? Who arе ya? Who are ya gonna be?/You’re gonna, you’re gonna a-make some history/Come on-a, Moana, go get your destiny” like, seriously? “Come on-a, Moana,” what does this stuff even mean? 

These songs are barely even attached to the plot. They’re allergy medicine commercial level generic, which is pathetic coming from this media giant. I know Disney has the time and money to make good music because they’ve been doing it forever. So why stop now? Because they know people will buy in no matter what.

While I’m at it, the characters are just sad. They’re all so one-dimensional, if you could even call them that. This movie introduces a whole boat crew for Moana (because why sell two toys of her and Maui when you could sell three more of her crew?). We’ve got the tinkerer, who’s logical but learns to trust her friends; the clumsy oaf, who learns to trust himself and his friends; the grumpy old man, who learns to trust his friends, and guess what? Moana and Maui who learn to trust their friends. Literally nothing happens, but by the end they all love each other and nothing matters at all.

What’s frustrating about this movie is that, in concept, it’s not bad. I like the bat lady villain. I like Moana. I don’t even really hate the boat crew idea. All together this could’ve been a good film, but it’s ruined by its own greed. 

Movies like Moana are so important because they give mainstream depictions of underrepresented groups like Pacific Islanders. I can’t speak on the experience of seeing myself in Moana 2, but I think the people that can deserve for it to at least be a good film. I just wish Disney would act like they care at all. I don’t see any reason to watch this movie instead of Moana, so I guess that’s my main takeaway. Just watch Moana.