Moana is another great addition to the Disney Canon. Disney has continuously thrown out all these amazing movies in the 2010 decade and this film is no exception. This wouldn’t be the first time that Disney dipped their toes into hawain culture as they previously have explored this culture briefly in Lilo and Stitch. However where that movie was set in hawaii with some cultural aspects, Moana is fully ingrained with hawain traditions and stories as this takes place in a different period of time compared to the modern day setting of Lilo and Stitch. While I believe Moana isn’t quite as great as movies like Wreck It Ralph or Zootopia, there are still plenty of things to love in this well crafted adventure for all.
Moana is drawn to the ocean as a toddler and the ocean itself gives a young Moana the heart of Te fiti which has been stolen by Maui (Dywane Johnson) who is the demigod of the wind and sea. Moana (Auli'l Cravalho) grows up into a teenager and is training to take over as chief from his father Tui. Although Moana loves her village, her father forbids her to go beyond the reef despite how many times she always comes back to the water. When the island starts to deteriorate of it’s crops, Moana risks it all to go on a quest to find Maui to restore the heart of Te Fiti but it may be harder than it seems as Moana is not a master wayfinder and Maui doesn't have his magical fish hook. The two will have to face impossible odds in order to set things right with their world and themselves.
Like mentioned before, the movie is set in the pacific islands and like many other Disney movies that are set in geographical locations, it takes full advantage of showing off the beautiful environment and the people’s culture. It's great to see Disney pay respect to another land's customs, but the story on top of that delivers on a fun and adventurous tale that has many laughs but also many interesting scenarios. Our heroes come across many dangers including a clan of coconut pirates called Kakamora and a huge crab monster named Tamatoa and each one gets more elaborate and bigger than the one before. The only thing I'd complain about is the third act of the movie as the movie halts and I felt like the resolution afterwards between Moana and Maui could have been better realized.
The characters are well developed and really fun to watch. Moana herself is a determined but also inexperienced wayfinder who is tasked with finding Maui so he can restore the heart of Te fiti. Her character arc is enjoyable and I like that they make her a flawed person but not to the point of being totally helpless. Maui was a character I was really worried about at the time since I'm not necessarily a huge fan of actor Dywane Johnson and his record in family movies beforehand (Ex The Tooth Fairy) didn’t help his case. Luckily this movie proved me wrong and Maui became so enjoyable that he might as well stole the show with his confidant and likably arrogant persona and great one liners. There are even two cute side characters. A pig named Pua and a chicken named HeiHei. Now interestingly enough I remember in posters that they would always show these two characters next to our two main leads but when Moana goes on her adventure she only brings HeiHei and that's not a bad thing but I was wondering why Pua only shows up the beginning and ending of the movie even though he is shown in the majority of advertisements. I would have loved to see him come along with the others but I was kinda disappointed when he only showed up in just a couple scenes but don’t worry it didn’t ruin the whole movie for me I just thought it was a little falsely advertised.
Disney has been known to bring stellar animation to almost every animated film they create and with Moana, they pushed themselves to the extreme. Let's start with the animation with the water because wow is it unbelievable. What the animators did for the water is probably some of the best water animation i’ve ever seen in any CG animated feature. That's not all that is grand in scale because the many dangers our characters face lead to some grand set pieces that include the ships of Kakamora and well staged final battle between Moana and the lava monster Tikka. The movie also features a good amount of 2D animation to blend with the 3D animation, more specifically the tattoos on Maui which have a personality of their own. Funny enough, that specific animation is done by vertrain 2D animator Eric Goldberg who is most well known for animating the genie in Aladdin. It's great to see disney moving forward with the new visual technology but also keep their old traditions in hand and Moana is like a marriage between the old and the new.
The songs are destined to become the next thing kids will sing right after “Frozen”. Most of them are catchy, fun and sometimes emotionally inspirational. The lyrics were created by Mark Mancina and Lin-Manuel Miranda who have many credits to other movies and broadway musicals. Much like the movie, the songs are engrained with hawaiian culture and are great at expressing the feelings of the character who is singing. One of the more interesting additions that I never thought would work but surprisingly does is give Dywane Johnson his own song number as Maui. I would think Dywane would screw this up but his personality and energy is so good that it honestly made me feel surprised how disney took an actor im not a huge fan off and made him a superstar with that one song from Maui. The rest of the soundtrack also has hawaiian like tunes and are great for bringing us into an interesting and lively world.
Moana is another win from Disney and a spectacular piece of moving art that brings us into another adventure filled with memorable characters, outstanding animation and great songs destined to become classics. What can I say Disney except thank you for giving us another entertaining movie for all to watch and enjoy for many reasons and more.
(Final Grade: A-)