Moana - Review

Who Made Moana?

Moana is Disney's 56th animated movie. It is directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, with Don Hall and Chris Williams as co-directors. Jared Bush receives sole credit for writing the screenplay, but seven people are credited with creating the story, including the four directors. Taika Waititi, who wrote the first draft of the screenplay, is not credited. but according to those involved in the production of Moana, he had quite a bit of influence on the finished film. 

What’s It About?

Moana tells the story of Moana (voiced by Auli'i Cravalho), the daughter of Tui (voiced by Temuera Morrison), chieftain of Motunui Island, and his wife Sita (voiced by Nicole Scherzinger). Moana is being trained to take up her future role as leader of the island, but she feels an uncontrollable desire to explore the sea, which is encouraged by her grandmother, Gramma Tala (voiced by Rachael House). However, exploration of the sea is now no longer practised, due to an incident from a thousand years ago, when the demigod Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), stole the gemstone which was the heart of the living island Te Fiti. His actions inadvertently unleashed the Lava monster Te Ka, as well as a blight which is beginning to spread across the Ocean. When this darkness finally encroaches upon Motunui and leads to food shortages, Moana takes a boat and sets sail in order to find Maui and get him to restore Te Fiti’s heart to its proper place. On their voyage, the duo encounter a tribe of diminutive imps called Kakamora, and Tamatoa, a giant crab who steals shiny objects, before finally coming up against Te Ka itself.

My Review

2016 has been a brilliant year for Disney. Zootropolis, The Jungle Book and Finding Dory have been major critical and commercial successes, and due to their ownership of Marvel Studios, Disney have completely dominated the list of the year’s highest-grossing movies. In order to meet the standard set by these movies, Moana had to be excellent. Fortunately, it provides viewers with the memorable characters, colourful animation and catchy songs needed for another Disney hit.

The first thing to note about Moana is that the animation is excellent – it’s really, really colourful. The vast expanses of water are depicted in great detail, and scenes where the ocean comes to life to assist Moana are fun to watch. The other locations, such as Moana’s island and the Underworld where Tamatoa lives (which is full of luminous ultraviolet monsters), are also animated very vividly. Meanwhile, the action sequences, including Moana’s initial attempt to sail beyond the reef, and her battle with the Kakamora, are fast-moving and exciting. However, the most impressive animation is used for Maui. His ability to shapeshift lends itself to a number of memorable visuals, as he changes into a wide range of creatures, including a bird, a beetle, and (for one brief but amusing moment) a reindeer. Maui’s tattoos are animated in traditional hand-drawn style, with a tattoo of himself (Mini-Maui) providing the role of his conscience, and getting some amusing moments. You can really see how much effort the animators put into the movie, and this makes it impressive, even by the higher standards of CGI animation.

The best character in Moana is easily the titular protagonist. Torn between her sense of duty to her island and her burning desire to explore the seas, she eventually finds a way to combine both of these seemingly conflicting aims. Moana can be funny, angry, kind, vulnerable and sensitive, and feels like a realistic and relatable character, keeping up Disney’s tradition of strong female leads. Another great character is Gramma Tala, the self-proclaimed “village crazy lady”, who tells Moana about her ancestor’s illustrious past. This is probably the first time that a grandmother-granddaughter relationship has been so important to a Disney film, and the bond between Moana and Gramma Tala provides the movie with many of its most powerful scenes. The other notable character is Maui. Given the reverence with which the demigod is viewed by many people, Disney were under a lot of pressure to do the character justice. There are some instances, especially early on, where he is a little too unpleasant to Moana, but he becomes more likeable when we learn more about his past and why he stole the heart of Te Fiti. In addition, Maui is often very funny. He gets many of the self-referential lines which have featured in Disney’s recent hits (for example, “If you start singing, I’m gonna throw up!”) and even manages to point out a couple of plot holes (Why did the ocean choose Moana?). However, for all these updates, Maui is still pretty close to the character from the myths. It is entirely plausible that his heroic deeds would make him become arrogant, and when Maui overcomes his flaws and unleashes the full power of his signature fish-hook, it’s genuinely awesome. Much of the second half of Moana features Moana and Maui on a boat together, but there’s nothing romantic about this relationship. Instead, it is more like the dynamic between a teacher and a student, as Maui teaches Moana the art of wayfaring, and Moana helps the demigod regain his former greatness. Though there are some amusing side characters (such as Moana’s dim-witted pet chicken Hei-Hei, who swallows rocks and ends up on her boat by accident), Moana, Maui and Gramma Tala are the three standouts, and they elevate the movie.

Much has been made of the fact that Moana features a cast consisting almost entirely of Polynesian voice actors (with the notable exception of Alan Tudyk, who provides Hei-Hei’s clucks and screams, and also voices a minor un-named Islander), and they all succeed in bringing their characters to life. As Moana, Auli'i Cravalho pretty much has to carry the entire film on her shoulders. With the exception of a couple of sillier moments, she resoundingly succeeds in this task – it’s almost impossible to believe that this is the first movie she’s ever starred in. Dwayne Johnson has no trouble showing off Maui’s confidence and energy, but also succeeds in highlighting his vulnerability later on. Rachel House is full of warmth and feistiness as Gramma Tala. Temuera Morrison, who voices Tui, is a convincing leader, whilst Nicole Scherzinger’s acting as Sita is solid enough for her presence not to be too much of a distraction. It is also worth mentioning Jemaine Clement, who is really funny as Tamatoa, but also gets a couple of more menacing moments when his character belittles Moana and Maui. It’s evident that the cast was chosen for their talent as well as their ethnicity.

The high level of authenticity in the casting extends to the depiction of Pacific Islander culture. In the scenes showing daily life in Motunui, we see a number of traditional Polynesian customs, such as the weaving of baskets and the creation of a full-body Pe’a tattoo. We also see how Moana manages many of the problems facing her island, such as the dying coconuts and fish shortages. As well as being interesting to watch, this develops the story – It’s rare for a Disney film to give us this much insight into what it’s like to be a ruler. The extra realism this adds makes the characters more developed and the storyline more engaging.

The movie has about eight songs (not including reprises), and they are all great. They probably won’t achieve the chart success of “Let it Go” or “Try Everything” (they’re too closely linked to the movie and its characters to have the near-universal appeal of those songs), but Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa‘I have managed to provide music which is right up there with the songs from the Disney Renaissance.  Among the memorable tunes in Moana are “We Know The Way”, which blends English lyrics with lines in Tokelauan language (Tokelauan is a rare South Pacific dialect used in much of Opetaia Foa‘I’s previous music) to tell the story of Moana’s ancestors, and Tamatoa’s song “Shiny”, a villain song reminiscent of Jemaine Clement’s past work in Flight of the Conchords.  However, the movie’s two strongest songs are Moana’s song “How Far I’ll Go”, and Maui’s song “You’re Welcome”. Like all the best musical theatre songs, “How Far I’ll Go” does an excellent job of conveying how Moana feels about her desires and insecurities. It seems like a difficult song to sing, but Auli'i Cravalho does an excellent job of conveying her character’s emotions. Meanwhile, “You’re Welcome” is a Big-Band song which shares some DNA with “Friend Like Me”, but it has a unique identity of its own, as Maui boasts about all his heroic deeds from Polynesian mythology (slowing down the sun to make the day longer, raising islands from the sea, etc…). Dwayne Johnson is a surprisingly strong singer, and the song really plays to his sense of showmanship.

Probably the main weakness with Moana is the lack of a central villain. Like Pinocchio (which was released 76 years ago), Moana has an episodic structure, with Moana and Maui meeting an enemy, escaping from them, and moving on. The three antagonists the duo face are all very interesting, which makes it a shame that they don’t get enough screen time. Of these characters, Tamatoa, an egocentric kleptomaniac crab who dwarfs even Maui, is easily the best, which makes it a shame that he doesn’t appear for very long. Te Ka, the Monstro to Moana’s Pinocchio, is intimidating, but doesn’t do much apart from throwing balls of fire at our protagonists, and the reveal of its true identity could have been a bit more powerful. However, the villains are not the only characters who should have appeared more. Tui is a well-developed character, and has a very good reason not to want Moana to sail beyond the reef (When he was younger, his friend drowned after a sailing expedition went wrong), but he vanishes from the story after Moana leaves her island. It’s understandable that Clements and Musker did not want Tui to be another King Triton-type overprotective father, but it’s a bit annoying that we don’t really see him react to Moana’s disappearance.

However, these weaknesses are relatively minor in comparison to the movie’s positives. For all of Moana’s flaws, it is an upbeat movie with the three things which matter most when creating a Disney movie: great songs, great animation and great characters. By delivering these, Moana marks itself out as an excellent addition to the Disney Animated Canon.

P.S -  If you stay in your seat during the end credits, you'll see a final scene with Tamatoa, where he gets a particularly funny line referring to another crab from a different Disney movie. Moments like this are why he should have been given a much larger role.

Verdict

Overall, Moana is another great animated movie from Disney, continuing the winning streak which began with Tangled in 2010. The story can be predictable at times, but this doesn’t really matter when the movie provides such enjoyable escapism. The songs are all worth listening to again and again, and the animation is wonderful to look at. It’s also clear that the filmmakers love the Polynesian culture which they are depicting, and the movie succeeds in providing an appealing introduction to Polynesian myths, customs and values. In addition, there are some great characters, and plenty of funny moments, with enough sad and intense scenes to give the film a bit of an edge as well. To conclude, Moana is definitely worth seeing, and deserves a place alongside the past Disney classics.

If You Liked This, See:

The Little Mermaid – Out of all Clements and Musker’s previous Disney films, Moana has the most in common with The Little Mermaid, due to the prominence of the ocean and the basic “follow your dreams” storyline. Although Moana is probably the more sophisticated of the two movies, The Little Mermaid’s songs, animation and characters still hold up today.

True Grit – Clements and Musker have often cited this classic 1969 John Wayne Western as an influence on their movie. This is because the relationship between Moana and Maui is similar to the dynamic between teenager Mattie Ross and washed-up lawman Rooster Cogburn, as Mattie persuades Rooster to bring her father’s killers to justice. If you are into Westerns, True Grit is essential viewing, as is the 2010 remake directed by the Coen Brothers.

Whale Rider – This 2003 film from New Zealand centres around a girl named Pai who wants to prove to her grandfather that she can be a future chieftain of a Maori tribe. Though it shares several themes with Moana, it takes a much more realistic approach, highlighted by its modern-day setting. It is also worth noting that Whale Rider features Gramma Tala herself, Rachel House, in a supporting role.