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MOANA 2

Producers: Yvett Merino and Christina Chen   Directors: David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller  Screenplay: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller, Bek Smith and Bryson Chun  Cast: Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Rose Matafeo, Hualālai Chung, David Fane, Rachel House, Alan Tudyk, Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda, Awhimai Fraser, Tofiga Fepulea’I and Gerald Ramsey   Distributor: Walt Disney Studios

Grade: C

The animation is spectacular but the story and songs decidedly less so in this sequel to Disney’s blockbuster 2016 animated musical.  “Moana 2” continues the adventures of the intrepid island wayfinder (voiced by Auliʻi Cravalho) and her demigod pal Maui (Dwayne Johnson).

In the first film they’d cooperated—after initial antagonism, of course—in restoring the “heart” of her island, Motunui.  Now they rejoin forces to reunite the peoples of the various islands of Oceania, who’d been separated, we learn along with Moana early on, by a curse laid on Motufetu, the island that served as their unifying hub, by the god Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea’i).

With Motunui now restored to lushness and peaceful prosperity, Moana has been traveling into uncharted territory, seeking evidence about other sea people with her animal chums, the pig Pua and the chicken Hei (Alan Tudyk).  After she finds a cup with some foreign symbols on it, she learns from her spectral ancestors, including her beloved deceased grandmother Tala (Rachel House), of Nalo’s disruptive curse, and is inspired to try to end it.  Her parents Tui (Temuera Morrison) and Sina (Nicole Scherzinger) are apprehensive, and her younger sister Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) distraught at the thought of her leaving, but Moana is determined.

This time, however, she will not go alone.  She recruits three islanders to accompany her, Pua and Hei: Loto (Rose Matafeo), a hyperactive young shipwright; Kele (David Fane), a cantankerous old farmer who will grow plants as food on the journey; and Moni (Hualālai Chung), an artist bard who also happens to idolize Maui.

He, however, is absent, having been captured by Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), who has imprisoned him dangling from his powerful fishhook in her dark realm, filled with her army of bats.  Though inserts occasionally return to his plight, it will not be until Moana and her cohorts free him some time into their voyage that he actually becomes part of the group, and even then reluctantly.

Before that happens Moana and the accompanying trio—who, it must be admitted, are more amusing in theory than in reality—encounter dangerous waters, since Nalo, whom we don’t actually see until a mid-closing credits scene, is a master of storms and angry seas, and of enormous sea monsters, most with the kid-pleasing habit of spewing out slime at every opportunity.  There’s also a large contingent of Kakamora, those coconut-bodied pirates carried over from the first film like stomach-thumping minions.            

They turn out to be allies this time around in a battle against a clam so huge that it’s initially taken to be an island.

Once egotistical Maui joins the mission, the film becomes a fairly obvious, if visually entrancing, effort to raise Motufetu from the bottom of the sea in the face of all the tempestuous rage Nalo can summon to stop them.  Their success is assured, of course, but watching it unfold leaves one feeling that it all seems formulaic, even with the eye-popping imagery fashioned by production designer Ian Gooding, animation director Byron Howard, animation heads Kevin Webb and Amy Lawson Smeed, and visual effects supervisors Carlos Cabral and Kyle Odermatt   Nor does the direction by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller or the editing by Jeremy Milton and Michael Louis Hill manage to boost the energy level sufficiently, largely because the script cobbled together by Jared Bush, Miller, Bek Smith and Bryson Chun comes across as a labored attempt to copy the template of the first film, its juggling of action and humor more calculated than natural and the episodes clumsily linked together with little attention to the passage of time, though Kele’s presence alone would suggest that the voyage is as prolonged as that of Jason and the Argonauts.

While the background score by Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’I does its job efficiently enough, moreover, the songs by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear don’t match the infectious quality of those in the previous movie.  The ones early on are pleasant enough, if hardly memorable, but they get worse as the film proceeds, with the worst being Maui’s intended show-stopper, “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?,” designed to bolster Moana’s spirits when she’s feeling low.  Any lyric that includes the repeated refrain “Come on-a, Moana!” deserved to be scuttled.  The number also proves that Johnson simply cannot sing.

Otherwise, though, he’s on target again, delivering the swagger and bravado at the character’s core, even when the script’s banter is feeble.  Cravalho has no difficulty handling the vocal pyrotechnics, and, as eight years ago, her perkiness is consistently engaging even when the lines she’s delivering are not, as in Moana’s syrupy scenes with Simea.  Among the rest the standout is undoubtedly Fraser, who gives Matangi a droll malevolence, and even carries off her less-than-stellar solo number, “Get Lost.”  The indication in that end-credits scene that she might play a major role in the inevitable sequel is not unwelcome.

One shouldn’t be too hard on “Moana 2.”  Yes, it suffers from the common affliction of sequelitis, falling short of its predecessor.  But the drop-off isn’t calamitous, and fans of the first film will probably find it mildly enjoyable, especially since the visuals are so entrancing, and the lessons it dishes out uplifting enough.  But if the series is to continue, it will need smarter writing and better songs in future installments.            

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ARMOR

Producers: Joel Cohen, Alissa Holley and Gwen Osborne   Director: Justin Routt   Screenplay: Adrian Speckert and Corey Todd Hughes   Cast: Jason Patric, Sylvester Stallone, Dash Mihok, Josh Wiggins, Blake Shields, Erin Ownbey, Jeff Chase, Joshua David Whites, Laney Stiebing, Joel Cohen, Beau Bommarito, Miller Garfinkle, Martin Bradford and Billy Viores    Distributor: Lionsgate

Grade: D

Bargain-basement action movies are a dime a dozen on streaming sites nowadays—they’re today’s equivalent of the direct-to-video titles of the last generation—but they ordinarily require a recognizable name or two above the title to register with potential viewers.  “Armor” is about as bargain-ish as they come, but it boasts two bankable names, one of them Sylvester Stallone, who plays the villain of the piece, though, being Stallone, he’s a villain who follows a code of honor, unlike his comrades-in-arms.

We see him, using the nom de guerre Rook, preparing weapons alongside fellow thieves Smoke (Dash Mihok), Tex (Blake Shields), Viper (Jeff Chase), Echo (Joshua David Whites), Match (Martin Bradford) and Hawk (Billy Viores).  (One suspects that screenwriters Adrian Speckert and Corey Todd Hughes have watched “Reservoir Dogs” once too often.)

Their target is an armored car driven by a father-son team, James Brody (Jason Patric) and his boy Casey (Josh Wiggins).  James is an alcoholic ex-cop, secretly still drinking (an important, if unedifying plot point), whose relationship with his son is still tainted by an episode from their past—recounted in a flashback midway in the movie—in which his wife Trisha (Erin Ownbey) was killed in an auto crash for which he blames himself: driving with her and young Casey (Miller Garfinkle), though off-duty he’d insisted on ticketing a reckless driver (Beau Bommarito), and while their car was stopped beside the road, a truck crashed into it.  Though Casey, whose wife Sara (Laney Stiebing) is expecting, has forgiven him, James can’t forgive himself.

Their bond is tested when, having filled their truck with the contents of deposit boxes from a bank managed by an officious, insulting fellow (Joel Cohen, one of the producers), they set off along country roads, only to be pursued by Rook and his men.  They wind up trapped on an old bridge in the middle of nowhere between the gang’s two vehicles, and a standoff ensues between the gang and the men holed up inside the truck.  There’s lots of shooting and shouting over the course of an hour or so; a few gang members get picked off and Casey is wounded; a grenade blows the truck onto its side; a massive drill is produced to cut through the armor; James and Casey find that they’re carrying a lot more valuables than they thought, dangerous stuff; disputes boil over among the attackers, with hot-tempered Smoke clashing with Rook over whether to dump the truck over the side.

All of this sounds far more exciting in the telling than it emerges on screen, largely because Speckert and Hughes seem congenitally unable to produce anything but bland, cliché-ridden dialogue and director Justin Routt is incapable of imbuing the scenes with the energy and tension that could conceivably camouflage the essential preposterousness of the situation.  And while Patric and Wiggins try manfully to give some intensity to their underwritten characters and Mihok goes absolutely manic in an attempt to make Smoke a bulging-eyed threat, Stallone doesn’t appear to have bothered to have put any effort into his performance at all.  He simply saunters about with a perpetual scowl and an automatic rifle, delivering his lines in a monotone that suggests nothing more than impatience to pocket the money—his check, not the loot in the armored car. 

Worst of all, it appears that since he’s played by Stallone, Rook had to possess some grizzled nobility that would allow the character to walk off with a semi-heroic halo.  So the script ends with a supposed twist that keeps the guy from being a dyed-in-the-wool villain.  It totally deflates a balloon that’s been leaking air for sixty minutes or so. 

The rest of the cast go through the motions, and production designer Travis Zarwny and cinematographer Cale Finot do their best to make the static bridge location seem interesting.  But their work is rendered moot by Routt’s turgid pacing, Marc Fusco’s flaccid editing and Stallone’s deadening turn.  Yagmur Kaplan’s blowsy score tries to punch things up, to no avail.                

“Armor” is the sort of poverty-row action material that could have been saved only by a wild approach, imaginative style and a wicked sense of humor.  There’s no hint of any of them in this relentlessly dour, enervating heist movie.