Moana 2 Review: Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson Set Sail with New Friends in Gorgeous Sequel

Eight years after Disney thrilled audiences and families with Moana, Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson take their beloved animated characters back to the oceans of Polynesia.

Moana 2 revisits Cravalho’s title character three years after the events of the original. Moana is called to explore even further into the ocean by her way-finding ancestors and takes a new cast of characters — including ship-building expert Loto (Rose Matafeo), tapestry and history expert Moni (Hualā Chung) and farmer Kele (David Fane) — in search of a lost island called Motufetū.

Heihei the chicken — a bug-eyed, clumsy creature with a penchant for choking on food at inopportune moments — joins for another seafaring adventure, and this time Pua the pig is brought aboard too. 

Moana, who soon reunites with the demigod Maui (Johnson, 52) on her way to save her island again struggles between her keen sense of adventure and duty to her family and island with a fear that she may not return to her little sister Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda), who is shown among other children on the island who have come to idolize Moana as a hero.

Audiences may notice a change in songwriting direction. Tony- and Grammy-winning songwriter Lin Manuel-Miranda wrote songs for the original movie, including its most popular tracks “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome,” but Disney brought aboard Grammy winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, known best for their 2021 award-winning Unofficial Bridgerton Musical album, for the sequel.

Some of the new movie’s numbers miss the unique pizazz Miranda, 44, brings to his songs, but Barlow and Bear’s website identifies the duo as the first female songwriting duo and the youngest to compose for a Disney feature film.

It’s an achievement worthy of a theatrical release, considering that Disney initially conceived Moana 2 as a television series and reworked it into a feature film at CEO Bob Iger’s request.

The world Disney built around its popular seafaring not-a-princess misses the musical direction and lyricism Miranda developed for the 2016 original installment, but its sense of wonder for a beautifully rendered depiction of the ocean and its islands, as well as humor provided by Johnson and its supporting cast, make Moana‘s sequel just as worthy for families as the first film.

Moana 2 is in theaters Nov. 27.