Photo by Disney/DISNEY – © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Original Moana, after earning universal acclaim and more than $600 million worldwide, finally Moana is back! Moana has transitioned from being the youngest daughter of the island tribe’s leader to being the co-chieftain of her father after reversing an ancient curse on the goddess of nature.
Now, a number of young women named ‘Moanabe’ are now present on the fictional South Pacific island of Motunui, she is a role model for those young women in the village, even village elders ask for her advice, and her return from a three-day solo sail to a nearby island is celebrated as if it were a major national holiday.
Moana 2 was originally meant to be a television series, but switch to a big-screen which allowed for the bringing back of core of vocal cast, Cravalho and Johnson are both essential, while composers Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’I are back, it’s noticeable that lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda is absent.
Photo by Disney/DISNEY – © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson played the roles of Moana of Motunui and Maui, respectively, who restored Thee Fiti’s heart and brought her people back together with the ocean. Moana has been searching the seas and island after island for other individuals her tribe can connect with during that time. Despite her discovery of clues that these civilizations exist, it is frustrating that all of her investigations have turned out to be in vain.
The movie’s center is set in motion by a struggle between the natural and supernatural worlds. This time, an angry god has set a curse upon a distant island that must be lifted in order for the scattered peoples of the world to find one another. So Moana is given a task to find the lost island of Motufet and prevent the angry god of storms Nalo from keeping humanity forever apart, to finish this journey, Moana must find Maui again and recruit new members for her crew, including agriculture expert Kele (David Fane), shipbuilder Loto (Rose Matafeo), and historian Moni (Huallai Chung).
From then on, Moana 2 is hardly smooth sailing, an entire sequence in the undersea lair of batty demigod Matangi (Awhimai Fraser) comes across as annoying, just a convenience for a certain plot device. But the final confrontation with Nalo is genuinely solid. She never loses sight of her core values and the things she’s working so hard to protect: her family and people, particularly Moana and her three-year-old sister Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) share bonds that are emotionally powerful beyond my expectation, it does have its charms.
After achieving initial success, sequels can often become mass-produced products for consumers. However, this movie is beautifully animated and honors exploration, teamwork, and perseverance, some of small touches and odd character quirks that ended up distinguished as the original Moana. If you’re a parent who wants to bring your child to the theater, they will almost certainly be thrilled to witness Moana’s transformation into an even greater hero.
Photo by Disney/DISNEY – © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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