In the middle of all the creatively bankrupt “live action” remakes of classic animations and increasingly desperate Marvel movies, Disney did release a couple of genuinely great animated features in the last decade in Moana and Encanto. Both of these featured wonderful sets of songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, suggesting they may have finally found their new Alan Menken (but hey, the original one is still there!) – it remains to be seen whether Moana 2 can brush off the notion that it’s a cash-in sequel rather than an extension of the cultural phenomenon that was the original but I’m afraid to say we don’t need to wait any longer to know that musically it falls well short. While the arrangements of the sequel’s new songs do a lot of heavy lifting to push them to a higher level, and to an extent succeed in doing so, they pale in comparison with Miranda’s. (I assume the reason for his absence is his involvement in Mufasa, released at the same time – I haven’t seen it so can’t reprise my “creatively bankrupt” comment, but I am surprised he agreed to be involved.) By far the best of the new songs (written primarily by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear) is “Beyond”, a powerful anthem belted out beautifully by Auli’i Cravalho (whose voice has a considerable added maturity given the years that have passed since the first one) both for the in-movie version and the slightly more poppy credits arrangement. Other than that we have what essentially sound like pale retreads, with very fast singing styles (perhaps attempting to evoke Miranda’s style, but he doesn’t do it like this) meaning they’re hard to get into for the target audience, and lyrics which induce a few eye-rolling moments at the banal rhyming pairs. They’re not a disaster but there is a “direct-to-video” feel to them which the terrific arrangements can only partially mask, and when the first film’s “We Know the Way” is reprised it exposes the gulf in class.

Faring somewhat better are the Hawai’ian songs written by Opetaia Foa’i and performed by his Polynesian band Te Veka. While melodically I don’t think any of them really sticks, they make for very entertaining listening. The final musical element is Mark Mancina’s score – while he does incorporate elements of the songs into his score, it doesn’t really blend (slightly surprisingly) with the various world music styles heard throughout them, instead sticking in traditional orchestral territory for the most part (which feels like a slight opportunity missed). It’s all competently done, but desperately needs stronger themes to hold it together – there are almost thirty tracks of score included, which run to just under an hour, and the constant flitting between styles (from broad comedy to hard-hitting action) with nothing sticking around for very long would be easier to handle were it bound together a little more with stronger melodies. I can’t blame the songwriters for that because the first film’s score felt a little like that too – though that time there was a more conscious effort to tie at least the Foa’i style together with Mancina’s. The songs aren’t awful, they’re just mostly not memorable; and the score is not one that’s written in a way that lends itself to listening by itself, so despite some strong moments it’s hard to really recommend.

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