Moana 2 - 4K Digital Review

[Michael Scott]

Moana 2

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
Disney’s Moana was a surprise hit that captivated me 9 years ago. Back then Disney was in a weird head space. They were trying to figure out where they stood in the animated landscape with studios like Dreamworks taking their proverbial lunch. As such they were experimenting with different movies, different takes on the princess genre, and simply expanding their style to meet with Pixar a little bit. Moana came out of left field and surprised audiences everywhere, giving us a high-stakes classic Disney “girl on an adventure” story, while capitalizing on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s star power at the time. And guess what, it worked. Moana was one of the biggest hits of the 2010 Disney era and one of the most visually captivating animated films of that period. Now they’re back with part two, after years of speculation about whether Disney would make a live-action Moana, or simply a sequel.

Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) has become a wave rider for her island nation, delving deep into the seas in order to find new paths and new opportunities for her people. At home, she’s a hero to her people, a loving big sister, and a thankful daughter to her chieftain father (Temuera Morrison). But, things change dramatically when Moana realizes that there are OTHER tribes of oceanic peoples out beyond their horizon after finding an ancient artifact. Turns out, the people of the sea were separated from each other years ago due to a curse from the angry god Nalo. There used to be an island centerpoint that acted as a hub for all of the oceanic people to interact with each other, but Nalo sunk the island underneath the sea and cursed it so that the people of the sea would never be united again.

Moana, not one to take things lying down, follows the call of her ancestors to restore the island once more and sets out on a dangerous mission to find this mysterious island and use the demigod Maui (The Rock) to raise it for her. This means assembling a crew to help her get across the ocean, and hopefully bend her will upon Maui and get him to unite their people once more. But it isn’t going to be easy. Nalo knows they’re coming, and will do whatever it takes to keep the people from breaking his centuries-old curse.

Trying to top Moana is kind of like trying to top Frozen with a sequel. The first was just so massive that no matter how good the sequel does, its chances of actually surpassing the original are slim at best. However, Moana 2 manages to capture the feeling of the original pretty quickly, reintroducing us to the intrepid (and enthusiastic) girl we fell in love with 9 years ago. The adventure plays out much like the original, with Moana doing unimaginably great things and breaking down perceived barriers, and Maui being annoyingly entertaining thanks to Dwayne Johnson. Now, here’s where things get sticky. Though it manages to capture that 2016 vibe that Moana rode in on, the film suffers a lot from typical Disney sequelitis. It adds too many sub-characters (we’re now doing the overly cliched “Team Moana!” thing), and the stakes just aren’t as high. The first film just THRIVED off of the Polynesian folklore and history, blending ancient myths with reality, while blending in action and adventure. The final face-off between Moana and the island spirit was incredibly intense and powerful. You FELT that even if you didn’t completely understand the island mythology that it was drawn from. Here, things are a bit different. The action and plot are a little hollow in many ways. Nalo is never even confronted in the whole film, and the enemy feels cheap and meaningless. The same goes for the actual battle. Things end about 15 minutes too early with a battle that just doesn’t feel like it has stakes.




Rating:

Rated PG for action/peril




Video:

Like usual, I’m refraining from giving an actual star rating for the video quality as this was a streaming digital copy through Movies Anywhere, and streaming is very bandwidth-reliant. That being said, this looks GORGEOUS in 4K Dolby Vision. Moana has always been a very bright and vivid world, with rich sea blues and greens, complimented by scraps of multicolored clothing to brighten things up. The Dolby Vision application is incredible here, showcasing stunning color saturation levels, and rich inky blacks under the seat (and in the island clam bowels). I did notice some banding underwater (not shocking, especially since this is a compressed stream), but overall this is a very clean and brilliantly animated piece of work.








Audio:

Simultaneously, the audio score will not get a star rating for the same reason. Compression. Anyway, the Dolby Atmos track sounds good for what it is (streaming audio always fares worse than streaming video for some reason), and after the typical Disney-level boosting, the track sounds quite pleasant. Vocals are crisp and clear, with heavy surround usage for the music and sea adventuring. I did find the bass a bit timid, but that very well could be an issue with the streaming audio mix, as bitrate starving notoriously impacts LFE a lot. Overall, it’s a nice sounding mix and I really want to hear what the 4K UHD Atmos track sounds like.







Extras:

• Call of the Wayfinder
• A New Voyage
• Songs of the Sea
• Join the Crew
• Kakamora Chronicles
• Fun in the Booth
• Deleted Scenes
• Song Selections
• Sing Along with the Movie

Final Score: ​

Moana 2 is a mixture of good and bad. On the good side, it most certainly captures that island vibe that Moana captured back in 2016, but it also suffers quite a bit by acting as a “greatest hits” from the first film at times. The stakes are lower, the villain less threatening, AND we’re now setting the film up for an obvious 3rd entry. But overall, it’s a rather compelling story that still entertained me despite being weaker than its predecessor. The visuals are absolutely stunning, even with my digital stream, and fans of the movie will definitely want to pick it up as the tech specs look and sound amazing.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualalai Chung, Temuera Morrison
Directed by: David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller
Written by: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller, Bek Smith
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos
Subtitles: English
Studio: Disney
Rated: PG
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Digital Release Date: January 28th, 2025

Recommendation: Decent Watch