So, I watched Moana 2 (or Vaiana 2, as it's inexplicably called in Europe) at the cinema this week. And it was OK. It didn't irritate me as Ralph Breaks the Internet did and was mercifully free from the Wise Natives vs Civilisation rhetoric of Frozen 2. The story, although there wasn't a lot of it, followed naturally from what happened in the first film, and it didn't detract from it. It didn't, for instance, separate close friends or sisters because "they need to let go" or some such rubbish. According to one YouTube review, the animation for this project was outsourced as it was originally supposed to be a Disney Plus series, but I still thought said animation looked really good.
Having said all that, the film felt underwhelming – "mid" as the kids may or may not say. The origin as a Disney Plus series really shows. Ironically, I think I would have appreciated it much more as a series, as the characters would then have had to be fleshed out. As it is, although Moana (yeah, I'm calling her that, so sue me) and Maui are as charming as ever, the secondary characters don't have a lot to do. Moana brings a crew with her on her new adventure with different skill sets, but these skills don't really come into play that much. Why did she have to bring the reluctant old farmer again?
Villain pickings are slim. The antagonistic-seeming Matangi who holds Maui captive is a fun addition, but she's painfully underused. Instead, the main villain is a thunder god named Nalo, who only shows up as an angry face in the clouds and as a disgruntled, not very menacing guy in a mid-credit scene. Nalo has cursed the peoples of the ocean by sinking a particular island, which somehow means they can't find one another. Why? Because he thought splitting people up would give him more power. Why would it do that? No idea. As thunder gods go, Nalo is singularly personality-less. In a series, they could have explained things a bit better with a mythological flashback, but as it is...
It's not the only time the storytelling is a let-down, either. Moana and Co. make a deal with her old foe the Kakamora to defeat a giant clam in return for their help. But the clam-defeating is a dismal failure, and were it not for one of the Kakamora's own warriors they would have been worse off than before. This is not how deal-based storylines work! Since the Kakamora have no debt to pay to Moana and her crew, as they failed to deliver on their part of the bargain, this plot thread is simply cut short.
I could go on whining about how Moana 2 feels it has to hit the very same storybeats as the first film, which slows the whole thing up – does Moana really need a new "How Far I'll Go"-style song, or wouldn't it maybe have been better if her big ballad had a new topic this time? – but it's time to come to the question I posed in the title, to which I have no answer. In spite of everything, I had a good time watching Moana 2 (and there were some enthusiastic kids in the cinema audience). But I've no idea why it's such a smash hit.
It seems I'm as lousy at predictions in show business as in any other kind of business. Were I a studio boss, I would have no idea where to invest money in order to get a good return. It could be that cinemagoers aren't that fussed about creativity and originality, which is fair enough – I myself can feel that film snobs go on about these virtues a little too much. But in that case, why does entertaining and lightweight fare like Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves and Red One bomb at the cinema? In both cases, you can argue "yeah, they seem fun but not unmissable: I'll wait until they hit the streaming services". But you can make exactly the same argument about Moana 2.
Maybe Disney's Bob Iger is right, and nostalgia is such a strong factor with filmgoers that they're prepared to show up at the cinema for a mid product as long as it's tied to a franchise they know and love. That would explain why Dreamwork's Kung Fu Panda 4 did well in cinemas, in spite of being an even more tired sequel than Moana 2. Apparently, it's much harder getting people so excited about a new potential franchise they're willing to leave their TV sofa in favour of the cinema. A film that's simply entertaining but little else isn't enough.
In the long run, as I've discussed before, this poses a problem. Disney and other studios can't rest on their laurels and churn out sequels forever. I suppose I should take my responsibility as a consumer and go to the cinema more often, if a film sounds promising enough, instead of lazily waiting for the streaming release. But for now, I'll snuggle down in my TV sofa and just be glad I'm not a studio boss.
