Moana Review

Moana

Maui: "The chicken lives!"

     "Moana" is directed by Ron Clements ("Aladdin", "The Little Mermaid"), John Musker ("Hercules", "The Princess and the Frog"), Don Hall ("Big Hero 6", "Winnie the Pooh"), and Chris Williams ("Big Hero 6", "Bolt") and stars Auli'i Cravalho as Moana, Dwayne Johnson as Maui, Rachel House as Gramma Tala, Temuera Morrison as Chief Tui, Nicole Scherzinger as Sina, and Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa.

Oh, wow. The casting is way too perfect.

     To save her people and her island home from a curse, Moana sets sail to find the demigod Maui to make him return Te Fiti's heart back to goddess Te Fiti. This would in turn give more life to Moana's island so they can eat and lvive. On their journey, Moana and Maui will face a cornucopia of mythical creatures and to save the Te Fiti islands from being cursed for eternity.

Deadly living coconuts with armor and weapons are one of those creatures.

     First thing's first: the music pairs delightfully well with the animation. I've never seen an animated movie with singing and dance numbers match up with its animation as perfectly as "Moana". I can say that the classic animated Disney movies like "Hercules", "Beauty and the Beast", "Mulan", or any of those films encapsulate the animation and the music phenomenally, but the truth is that "Moana", because of the location style, blends the two aesthetics to make it one. The choice to have Lin-Manuel Miranda help out with the music and the singing was perfect. Hell, he made Dwayne Johnson's voice sound like butter! I never knew the guy had a voice like that! What can't the guy do? The lush island environment is so colorful that it's almost like music. It probably is music to animators, but it shows on screen and I'll let you know that I can see that the animators took their time to massage each motion of a human and the movement of water. Disney does what they do best: animation. They stick the landing with the music and the animation. Another upside is that I don't think we'll have another "Let It Go" with kids singing the song every 20 minutes. God, that was just annoying.

I'm sure if I showed Lin-Manuel Miranda these stills, he could make a musical just out of the limited info given to him. He's that talented.

     The sweetness of "Moana" wasn't overbearing, which surprised the hell out of me. I thought that I would for sure have some sort of trouble taking in a high-pitched innocent voice singing about cleaning. Good thing that there was none of that. Nothing in the overall plot was new or eye-opening, but I wouldn't expect this sort of movie to incorporate anything ground-breaking. It was fantastic for what it set out to be: a lovely musical about tropical mythology. Maybe that is kind of new, now that I think about it. I still don't think that there are any risks involved in the directions the filmmakers took "Moana" though. I could potentially see a risk in making a film about Pacific Islanders. I'm ecstatic that it worked out fine though. We've seen the Caucasian protagonist, the Asian protagonist, the African-American protagonist, but we haven't seen the Pacific Islander protagonist until now. It's been a long time coming. Not to make this a race thing, but I feel like there was always room for that area in race so I'm proud of Disney for coming to their senses. Hopefully, we get a Latina princess on the big screen soon and not just on Disney Channel.

I had no idea that a Latina Princess existed in the Disney Universe. You learn something new everyday.

     "Moana" makes it clear that Disney knows how to make great princess movies that are fun for kids and adults. The surprising amount of musical numbers and funny, non-stereotypical Disney characters astonished me as to how much I liked them. How well the animation combines with the music is just the cherry on top, too. I didn't mention this either, but I want to point out that Moana, as a princess, is quite possibly one of my favorite princesses. Yeah, I said it. I have a list of which ones I like and Moana is in my top five. Sorry, not sorry. I spotted minimal differences in how this princess story went about to many other stories, but I think "Moana" does the formula justice and thoroughly engages the audience with the above mentioned Disney princess movie factors.

4.7/5

PRO

• Animation is lush and beautiful
• Music is fun, catchy, and pairs well with animation
• Moana is a great addition to the list of princesses
• Pacific Islander theme

CON

• Plot doesn't surprise me; predictable, but in a fun way 

"Moana" is rated PG for peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements

Click here to watch the trailer

"Moana" is in theaters now

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