After a long wait, Moana 2 is finally here, and it’s been described in quite a few different ways, to say the least. The question that everyone is asking is, “Is Moana 2 a worthy sequel to the original film that came out 8 years ago?” The movie has been a big hit on Thanksgiving weekend with Wicked and Gladiator 2.

This latest Disney sequel finds Auli’I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson returning as Moana and Maui. Still, on her quest to find other people in the world, Moana discovers an island that could connect all the civilizations in the Pacific, but its secret is guarded by an angry god. Now, Moana and her new crew of wayfinders have to set sail with Maui’s help to find the island and unite everyone in order to ensure the future of Moana’s people and culture.

Now, Moana 2 is a surprise release because it wasn’t even on the theatrical release schedule until earlier this year. It began its life as a streaming series for Disney+ until Disney CEO, Bob Iger, decided to change stream mid-production and make this a movie instead of streaming a series. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence because Disney had a largely disastrous year in 2023 and could use what seemed like a box office hit. Although, given Disney’s history, nothing is really a box office hit anymore. Now, it’s probably also not a coincidence that this movie was made amid the first Moana being a massively popular film on Disney+. I think that the accountants over at Disney realized that sending anything Moana related to streaming would potentially leave a lot of money on the table, including the live-action remake of that first Moana movie, which is currently on the theatrical release calendar for 2026.

There were sequences like Maui’s solo number, which was obviously meant to be a follow-up to You’re Welcome from the first movie that was intricate and had bright colors and moving pieces of scenery. They were very intricately designed, and it feels like there were certain sequences of the film that were revamped and redesigned to make them more cinematic. There were other sequences of the film that were left largely as they were and probably as they were designed for streaming.

One of the biggest pros was the movie’s tone and structure. You can break it down by act. The first act was kind of chaotic because they were trying to introduce so many people. They’re introducing Moana and Maui, they’re introducing Moana’s new group of way finders, they’re introducing this new mission that they have to go on. There are two villains in the movie that don’t really go anywhere, and all of this is crammed into a runtime that’s probably much shorter and less episodic in its structure than was originally planned

In the second act, it felt like watching a streaming show. It’s kind of hard to describe, but there is a difference in tone between a show that you’re watching on stream and something that’s designed to be watched on the big screen. It involves the time of jokes as the second act is full of them and it overwhelms the storyline a little bit. It really mirrors the structure of a TV show made for kids that’s designed to keep them hooked and entertained. With the amount of music, there’s not a lot of room for the jokes to breathe. It’s basically just throwing as much as it can at you throughout this act.

There is no telling what was kept from the original series and what was repurposed for the movie., but it seems like taking Moana 2 to a theatrical feature may not have delivered us a great Moana movie. On the other hand, it also could have saved us from a pretty substandard Moana series.

So, Moana 2 has a crammed Act One and a bad Act Two, but it also had a pretty good Act Three. It seems like a lot of work went into it to make it more ready for theaters since it is the finale.

It looks like the main reason that this film was fast-tracked and put in theaters for this Thanksgiving as opposed to next summer is that Disney wanted to put more space between Moana 2 and the live-action remake of Moana, which comes out in about a year, and a half. They want to protect the franchise by separating these two movies a little bit. If they had waited to release a more developed Moana movie it could have done much more negative damage to the franchise.