Moana 2 charts familiar waters, but stays buoyant

Disney's second voyage with Moana dives deeper into Pacific culture

- John Lui

MOANA 2 (PG) 100 minutes, opens on Nov 28

The story: Three years after the events of the first film, Moana (Auli'i Cravalho), now her people's finest wayfinder, is haunted by visions of her island's population vanishing. Unless she discovers Motofetu, the ancient crossroads of oceanic travel lost to a curse, humanity faces a grim future in isolated pockets, unable to share life-sustaining crops and knowledge. She assembles an unlikely crew - genius shipbuilder Loto (Rose Matafeo), strong-bodied storyteller Moni (Hualalai Chung), farmer Kele (David Fane) and Maui (Dwayne Johnson), the trickster demigod with a soft spot for humans.