The follow-up to Moana is a “swinging rollercoaster ride at Disneyland” but lacks the joy and refreshing originality of its predecessor.

Moana is one of the best cartoons in Disney history – and don’t take my word for it. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it ranks sixth in a list of all 73 of the studio’s animated theatrical releases, while last year’s offering, Wish, is way off at number 65.

One reason why Moana received so much critical acclaim is its refreshing originality. Rather than being adapted from a European fairy tale, it is a joyful tribute to Polynesian mythology, and so, in Disney terms, it explores uncharted territory. It also features sparklingly bright and colorful animation, a thrilling story, ingenious songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and two of Disney’s most beloved characters: Moana herself (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho), the sassy but insecure daughter of an island chief, and Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), a boastful demigod with tattoos moving around his wardrobe-sized body.

It is therefore a difficult act to follow. Making a worthwhile Moana sequel might not have been like that impossible as matching Paddington 2but it would always be difficult. On the other hand, the first film ends with Moana leading her people out to sea to become the travelers their ancestors were, so there is logic in making a sequel about their journeys. The premise is that Moana has been traveling solo since we last saw her, but she has yet to meet anyone else. Then she hears about an island called Motofetu, which was a meeting place for civilizations from across the ocean before it was cursed by a hateful god. If Moana can find Motofetu, she might be able to make new friends and trading partners. (She could also reduce the risk of inbreeding, which is certainly a serious if unspoken threat to her tribe.) Of course, that means she has to find Maui first.

It’s a solid setup for a quest adventure, but it’s clear early on that Moana 2 won’t be as exciting or revealing as Moana. The comedy is broader and crazier, the mission isn’t as urgent, and the songs rarely say anything important about the characters or the situation. It seems like they are inserted into the movie more often than not simply because you can’t have a musical without a musical number every ten minutes. Numerous crew members from the first film are back, but Moana 2 features new directors (David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller) and new songwriters, TikTok sensations Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. Their songs have the familiar Moana sound, but they’re not nearly as catchy or witty as How Far I’ll Go, Shiny, You’re Welcome, or the others Miranda wrote for the original film. At the screening I attended, people left the theater singing his songs instead of the new ones, which is not a good sign.

Of course, it’s not unusual for a sequel to fall short of the film before it, but the specific ways in which Moana 2 falls short are symptomatic of the way it was developed: It was intended to be a television series, and it only became one when, in February, the CEO Disney announced that this was the case reworked into a feature film. The project’s small-screen origins might explain why the characters look smoother and waxier to me than they did in 2016, as if they were action figures. The television script could also explain the introduction of Moana’s crazy gang of sidekicks, including a standard eccentric techie (voiced by Rose Matafeo) and one of the goblins from the first film who wear coconut shells for armor and look like they’ve been rappelled in Mad Max: Fury Road. You can see how useful these supporting characters could have been over the course of a series, but none of them have enough to do in a movie, and some don’t belong at all: if you were going on a long and dangerous sea voyage, why would you find room for an elderly greengrocer and a pig on your small wooden boat?

And then there is the structure. The plot hangs together as a complete, action-packed story, but it still comes across as several episodes glued together, each more bizarre than the last. I think there’s some sort of magical transdimensional portal involved, but between all the different gods, spirits, ghosts, and giant fish monsters that Moana encounters, I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. In a film that lacks the focus of its predecessor, what’s especially confusing is that we barely get to see the main villain: all we see are the lightning bolts he throws at Moana and Maui. But then, in a bonus scene during the end credits, he finally shows up and vows to get revenge on Moana, along with a few other supernatural villains. Is this the first time an animated Disney film has borrowed the Marvel gimmick of using one sequel to set up another? It certainly undermines the feeling that Moana 2 is a special or unique event.

For all this groaning from Moana, it’s still a high-quality piece of work: a thrilling rollercoaster ride at Disneyland that little kids will especially enjoy. The irony is that if it had been a television series, viewers might have been able to tell how spectacular it was. But as a movie, Moana 2 wouldn’t top the list of Disney’s best films.

Moana 2 will be released in cinemas on November 27 in the US and November 29 in the UK