More Moana than I Wanna Watch

I like to think I can meet any challenge, at least as far as movies are concerned. But I just can't get through 2024's Moana 2. It's just too damned boring. I got about halfway through before blessed slumber overtook me.

At least twenty minutes of it was exposition. Maybe it was all exposition. There's minutes and minutes of someone babbling about a magical island or explaining Moana's relationship with someone else or just how cool and perfect she is. Then one of the animal sidekicks makes a funny face and after that it's right back to the exposition mill. I just don't think I can take it anymore.

I don't believe a story has to have an arc or flawed characters. I even think a story composed largely of exposition could be interesting. Somehow Moana 2 is utterly devoid of tension, like every wrinkle that could've possibly produced dramatic effect was inexorably ironed out by committee. We've got no love interest, Moana has no tragic delusion, there's no sense of any real threat to her people.

So Disney seems to be allergic to love stories now. Maybe everyone is tired of the female leads pursuing a boy. One of the favourite replacements seems to be an urge to explore. There's a song in Moana 2, "Beyond", I could've sworn was in Frozen 2.

I get it. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast both had female protagonists who effectively sang about wanting exploration and adventure and then all they got was boyfriends. It always felt like a promise unfulfilled. The difference is that Ariel and Belle felt more vulnerable than Elsa (in Frozen 2) and Moana. There's a real sense that they'd be taking a risk embarking on those adventures. Ariel has the constant, unspoken tension of being a girl with no legs, like a less funny version of Olaf wanting to experience a summer day. She wants something we can plainly see is impossible. That's a perfect story for a teenager. Teenagers have big ideas and we adults have to stand by, cursed with our knowledge of life's true hardships, knowing just how vulnerable these kids are. But, no, Disney seems to say now, not vulnerable! Never vulnerable!

Anyway, I can't properly review Moana 2. Maybe I'll finish watching it at some point but life's short, you know?

X Sonnet 1928

Eclipses climb the crinkle stage of post.
To mail a razor tooth would quite the shave.
For dinner, try the royal ribbon roast.
You have to find a bat in Robin's cave.
A candy coloured waste expands ahead.
The Otter Pops have melted round the world.
Computers lift the recent dumb and dead.
Around our necks the empty snake has curled.
The bloody orange became a ready sun.
But blue departs the void around the ball.
The Silver Surfer starts an aimless run.
He finds the space concludes with painted wall.
Compactor sides converge to trap the heart.
But something lives beneath the Fam'ly Mart.