If Disney is going to take a made for streaming series project and whip it up into a last minute theatrical release, they could at least give us Return of Jafar instead of Bambi 2.  Moana does a poor job of catching the audience up on what some of our favorite characters have been up too since we last saw them through an adventure in such a superficial way.  And once the film reveals itself to actually not be one-dimensional we’re sailing midway through the 3rd act of a story that hopefully James Cameron won’t feel the need to be inspired by since he’s already made a billion dollars doing it with less heart.  The songs aren’t really memorable.  The new characters aside from one we only get in the 2nd act aren’t very memorable.  The story we now know is actually part of a trilogy that might actually be going back to streaming after these box office numbers drop is also not memorable.  And the Rock sings.  There’s still a lot of people’s favorite things about Moana here, but this film deserved to be better and just doesn’t feel like it was treated as such by the House of Mouse. 

Streaming now on Youtube, Apple TV, FandangoAtHome, Amazon Video, etc

♦♦

Director: Dana Ledoux Miller, Jason Hand, David Derrick Jr.

Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho,Dwayne Johnson, Awhimai Fraser, David Fane, Rose Matafe, Hualālai Chung

Runtime:  1 Hour 40 Minutes

Synopsis: Moana returns as a young adult encouraged by the water spirits to set sail on a new adventure to find the other lost tribes of the sea beyond her side of the reef. 

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