“Review results for “Moana 2” are far below the original”

It always felt like Disney was pushing its creative luck with a sequel to the excellent Moana. And in fact, that may be exactly what happened. Moana 2 is currently receiving positive reviews, but it is far below the original.

The original “Moana” had a 95% critic score with 287 reviews. Moana 2, on the other hand, has a 66% rating, albeit with a similar 89%/87% viewer ratings, and if that translates into huge box office returns then that’s pretty much all Disney cares about. Moana grossed $643 million worldwide in 2016, and I wouldn’t be shocked at all if the sequel did that, no matter what critics say.

I find it interesting to compare this to other sequels Disney/Pixar have made over the years:

• Moana (95%) – Moana 2 (66%)
• Frozen (89%) – Frozen 2 (77%)
• Inside Out (98%) – Inside Out 2 (90%)
• Toy Story (100%) – Toy Story 2 (100%)
• Finding Nemo (99%) – Finding Dory (94%)
• Monsters Inc (96%) – Monsters University (80%)
• The Incredibles (97%) – The Incredibles 2 (93%)

As you can see, Moana and Moana 2 have the biggest gap of all in terms of the criticisms we’ve seen so far. This also comes ahead of the release of the live-action Moana film starring The Rock, which will hit theaters in 2026, and we’ll see how that compares. By and large, every sequel minus Toy Story (which takes place on its own plane of existence) has done worse than the original, but Moana 2 has fallen really, really far short of the popularity of the first. But again, the film scores similar audience numbers and probably big box office returns, so who knows how much Disney really cares. Still, they want the animation department to maintain a high level of quality, and this is a year for some great animated entries from The Wild Robot to Transformers One. This is not nearly on the same level. (However, Inside Out 2 was a huge success).

Moana has already earned $50 million worldwide in a single day, and we’ll have to wait until the end of the weekend to get the total. But yeah, it’s going to be huge no matter how you look at it, and we’ll see if it’s a rare Disney film that gets a third entry as a result. Yes, Frozen 3 is coming, don’t forget. I expect “Moana 2” to take the top spot and get closer to billion centimeters, but we’ll have to wait and see.

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