A Disney announced a few months before its release, initially planned to be a Disney+ series: Vaiana 2 is an animated feature film with an atypical genesis. Wish of Walt Disney Animation Studios to launch into the creation of animated series on the company's platform with the same quality as cinema films, Vaiana 2particularly anticipated, is finally transformed into a feature film to be released in theaters, with the limits that this imposes.
If the emotion and pleasure of finding Vaiana and Maui remain, this sequel is a series of tasteless adventures and never has the density or strength of the first part.
In Vaiana 2the young daughter of the Polynesian chief is now an accomplished and recognized explorer, who goes from island to island in search of new peoples. A vain quest, which pushes Vaiana to question once again about her place in the world and the memory of her ancestors. A mysterious call from the past will force him to set sail again on the stormy seas in the hope of undoing the curse of an angry god. Vaiana 2 thus continues the themes addressed in the first film: search for identity, transmission of heritage and acceptance of one's roots are, in fact, on the program.
After wondering who she was in the first film, Moana now questions her tribe's entire place within the Pacific Ocean. An interesting idea which is unfortunately quickly abandoned in favor of a tasteless adventure.
Between series and film
If the introduction is, in fact, delightful, the sequel is lost in a succession of subplots and uninteresting adventures, noisy and without scope, where the poetic and graceful artistic direction of the first film gives way to design choices in the settings, the environments and even the “creatures” encountered with an eye towards science fiction. At best surprising, at worst repulsive. The film seeks itself and fatally lacks “cinema”.
Stuck in its format of three episodes patched together to last over time, the cinematic grandeur of Vaiana, the legend of the end of the world — in the production, the photography, the light, the color, the staging — is quickly abandoned. Vaiana 2 comes together without surprise and without brilliance.
Still seeking to gain scale, the film introduces new characters alongside Moana who form her crew. Sacrificed for the sake of the joke, they only serve humor and lack development. Fortunately, Moana and Maui remain strong, interesting and touching protagonists. The relationship between the human and the demigod – already at the heart of the first film – continues to be exploited and evolve, showing the full potential of this sequel during a final act that is a little more intense and moving.
Another strong point of the film, the desire to once again depict the customs of the Polynesian islands, with an authentic and sincere approach.
If Mark Mancina is back for the instrumental music, Lin-Manuel Miranda is not back on the song side and leaves his place to two composers, Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. Keeping a similar style, they deliver catchy and varied songs, which do not have the timeless strength of the first titles.
It is ultimately the film's bias in its overall narrative that harms it. All the events follow one another without ever settling, and the film has the constant need to de-dramatize the situations with ill-intentioned humor. Even though the basis is solid and the subtle balance of the first film has proven itself, Vaiana 2 is stuck in a format that does not correspond to it. Too narrow in the way of a television screen – the cinemascope format is terribly lacking in bringing this heavenly or dangerous nature to life -, too focused on jokes and too focused on fantasy.
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At the antagonist level, Vaiana 2 also fails to surpass its predecessor, with writing too reminiscent of the first film (but less well) and an ease of construction that cannot make one believe in the threat. Characters get lost and found for no reason, and are continually guided toward the solution without needing to find it on their own.
There remains a climax playing on emotion as well as a particularly strong scene at the start of the film between Vaiana and her little sister (the only good new character), who uses poetry from the previous film. There is nothing absolutely shameful about the show, but the drop in level is indisputable.
Vaiana 2 is the anti Frozen 2. If the continuation of the adventures of Elsa and Anna were able to reveal the full potential of their universes with increased ambition after an overall pleasant first film, Vaiana 2 does the exact opposite. A second (too) nice, colorful film, which follows a great epic and poetic fresco that is clearly superior. A transitional adventure for Moana and Maui that should have remained on Disney+?
The result is unmistakable and if the film lays the foundations of a mythology to be extended, this Vaiana 2 is ultimately more of a Vaiana 1.5. A side adventure, indispensable, before serious things begin, for better or for worse. After all, the first film was more than enough in itself, the Moana legend was all written.
Vaiana 2directed by David Derrick Jr. Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, with the French voices of Cerise Calixte and Anthony Kavanagh, 1h40, in theaters November 27, 2024.
