Vaiana 2

Vaiana (or Moana outside of Europe) is one of my favorite Disney films of all time. I know its songs by heart, I love the characters, and the wild, imaginative adventure reminds me of old-school classics like The Dark Crystal and Neverending Story. It's a comfort movie I watch at least once a year, and one of the few modern Disney animations I consider perfect.

So, naturally, Vaiana 2, a sequel almost ten years late to the party, has big shoes to fill. Walking in, I psyched myself up to enjoy the return to this world and its occupants. Less than 15 minutes into the film, I knew I was in trouble. Vaiana 2 isn't just a disappointing sequel, it's cynical and lifeless as well.

The first Vaiana came to a triumphant close as Vaiana led her people off their island and into the great unknown. It was a triumph for bravery and following the beat of your own drum. In Vaiana 2, everyone is back on the island, as if nothing had changed, and with the vaguest of explanations to set the stage. Apparently, there is a magical island, which an angry god sunk to the bottom of the ocean, that prevents the other tribes from finding one another. For a thousand years, nobody has sought it, because every adventurer before that failed.

Even before we set off on the new quest, Vaiana 2 bogs itself down with questions and needless exposition. There are no less than three major sequences where characters explain the need for the adventure, two of them in song. In Vaiana, we only needed the one. New characters join our hero, yet they might as well not be there. Their inclusion is so that Vaiana can have someone to explain the story to as it happens. It feels like the movie wants to repeat plot points at a furious pace so we don't stop to question how little sense it makes.

Meanwhile, Maui (Dwayne Johnson), is stuck inside a giant clam. He's on a quest to defeat the same god who sunk the same island that Vaiana seeks. Why? It's unclear. He's held captive by Matangi, although the how and why is again a mystery. By the time Vaiana stumbles into Maui's path, Matangi sings a song and disappears from the story without any explanation. This pattern repeats throughout the film. There is no conflict, only busywork, and because of it none of the characters grow or change. Until they do, at which point it feels unearned.

The songs, a lifeline for Disney films, are unremarkable. By the end, I couldn't tell you the name or message of any of them. They're flat and obvious, each without a single characteristic that would make them stand out. Where Vaiana featured some of the most emotional and story-driven songwriting in Disney history, its sequel settles for tunes that feel like placeholders.

Vaiana 2 began as a Disney Plus streaming series, which languished in development for so long it eventually turned back into a film. That long production cycle shows in a narrative that's disjointed and unsatisfying. It's a film paced like a TV series, one without any highpoints or conflicts, as if those were forgotten when the adaptations merged into one.

It also looks and feels like a product meant for the small screen. The animation is still high caliber, but there's a nagging sense like a lot of it feels recycled. Backgrounds look empty. As if something was lost in the framing. Viewed in the cinema, huge swaths of the canvas feel conspicuously vacant.

If it weren't for a few well-timed gags – even if they have nothing to do with the plot – and the delightful leading performance of Auliʻi Cravalho, there would be little to recommend in Vaiana 2. Yes, the youngest viewers will love it for the animals and the ocean, as they should. But in a world where we know that something as majestic as the first Vaiana is possible, it feels like a step down to accept something as lifeless as this.