Following the strong critical responses to The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, as well as the strong box office returns to Tangled and Frozen, the Disney Princess revival had officially kicked into high gear, so it’s no surprise that Disney were quick to getting to work on a new Renaissance style Princess musical. But they knew they needed something different, with directors Ron Clements & John Musker wanting to explore stories outside of traditional western fairy tales. The resulting film, much like Frozen, went on to become one of Disney’s greatest box office successes.
Legend says that the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) journeyed to the island of goddess Te Fiti to steal a mystical stone and the source of her power. The consequences of which caused Te Fiti to die, a volcanic demon, Te Kā, to rise from the depths of the ocean, and Maui to lose the stone.
A millennia later and on the island of Motunui, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) the daughter of chief Tui (Temuera Morrison) dreams of leaving the island to sail the oceans and explore the world that lies beyond the horizon. However, with her being next in line to inherit the position of chief, Moana is forbidden from leaving the island. But when the ocean gives her the heart of Te Fiti, Moana realises her true destiny is to find Maui and restore life to the fallen goddess before her island is shrouded in darkness.
Legend says that the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) journeyed to the island of goddess Te Fiti to steal a mystical stone and the source of her power. The consequences of which caused Te Fiti to die, a volcanic demon, Te Kā, to rise from the depths of the ocean, and Maui to lose the stone.
A millennia later and on the island of Motunui, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) the daughter of chief Tui (Temuera Morrison) dreams of leaving the island to sail the oceans and explore the world that lies beyond the horizon. However, with her being next in line to inherit the position of chief, Moana is forbidden from leaving the island. But when the ocean gives her the heart of Te Fiti, Moana realises her true destiny is to find Maui and restore life to the fallen goddess before her island is shrouded in darkness.
My opinion of Moana is generally positive but I definitely feel it has a weak middle portion that drags down the quality of the whole thing; and whilst overall I feel like the film is generally another strong entry to Disney’s long line of Animated Classics, there are a number of things I feel Moana would have been better without. But to start positive I love the opening of the film, the history of Maui and seeing Moana grow up on her island home. Her overly protective parents and how the islanders live in constant fear of the unknown which is what keeps them from venturing out beyond the safety of the reef that separates the ocean from their shores.
It’s all great until Maui and Moana start to work together and the story stalls for time by introducing a series of enemy encounters with other demigod’s so that Maui can earn back his magical fishhook in order to battle Te Kā.
Once this is out of the way though and the duo start towards the island where Te Fiti’s stone must be returned to the film picks itself back up again for a great finale that will definitely leave you all warm and fuzzy inside the way any good Disney film should, but also with that same sense of incredible female empowerment left by similar films like Mulan & Frozen.
Had the film been around fifteen to twenty minutes shorter and not included the whole rigmarole of Maui needing to get his fishhook back, or at least opted to instead allow for even more depth to be given to Moana’s character and her people on Motunui in place of these small action sequences then I feel that the quality of Moana would have been even stronger overall.
Moana is a fantastic character though, and much like Mulan, is one of Disney’s shining examples of a truly excellent female lead character. The way she shows she is more than capable of taking on the role her father has given her yet is still put down by her father for not doing it the way he thinks it should be done is incredibly compelling and allows you to gravitate so strongly to the character. Her whole fish out of water learning experience comes when she does finally leave her island home as she has always dreamed of and realises it’s not as easy as she first thought. Unlike most Disney heroes, Moana isn’t growing stronger to become the person she needs to be, she’s re-learning her forgotten heritage to help her people return to their former glory. It’s a refreshingly unique take on Disney’s rising hero trope because the focus wasn’t really about Moana bettering herself, but Moana bettering things for everyone else.
Maui is also a fun character who you’ll love to hate until you love to love him. He’s extremely arrogant and totally self-obsessed but goes on a very transformative journey over the course of the story. There’re also a few nice twists thrown into Maui’s backstory that pay off really well during his time with Moana.
There aren’t really that many other characters who are in the film for any significant length of time, Moana’s grandmother Tala (Rachel House) is one of the few characters who has some actual input to the plot and she’s brilliant, though still relatively in the background for most of the film.
It’s all great until Maui and Moana start to work together and the story stalls for time by introducing a series of enemy encounters with other demigod’s so that Maui can earn back his magical fishhook in order to battle Te Kā.
Once this is out of the way though and the duo start towards the island where Te Fiti’s stone must be returned to the film picks itself back up again for a great finale that will definitely leave you all warm and fuzzy inside the way any good Disney film should, but also with that same sense of incredible female empowerment left by similar films like Mulan & Frozen.
Had the film been around fifteen to twenty minutes shorter and not included the whole rigmarole of Maui needing to get his fishhook back, or at least opted to instead allow for even more depth to be given to Moana’s character and her people on Motunui in place of these small action sequences then I feel that the quality of Moana would have been even stronger overall.
Moana is a fantastic character though, and much like Mulan, is one of Disney’s shining examples of a truly excellent female lead character. The way she shows she is more than capable of taking on the role her father has given her yet is still put down by her father for not doing it the way he thinks it should be done is incredibly compelling and allows you to gravitate so strongly to the character. Her whole fish out of water learning experience comes when she does finally leave her island home as she has always dreamed of and realises it’s not as easy as she first thought. Unlike most Disney heroes, Moana isn’t growing stronger to become the person she needs to be, she’s re-learning her forgotten heritage to help her people return to their former glory. It’s a refreshingly unique take on Disney’s rising hero trope because the focus wasn’t really about Moana bettering herself, but Moana bettering things for everyone else.
Maui is also a fun character who you’ll love to hate until you love to love him. He’s extremely arrogant and totally self-obsessed but goes on a very transformative journey over the course of the story. There’re also a few nice twists thrown into Maui’s backstory that pay off really well during his time with Moana.
There aren’t really that many other characters who are in the film for any significant length of time, Moana’s grandmother Tala (Rachel House) is one of the few characters who has some actual input to the plot and she’s brilliant, though still relatively in the background for most of the film.
As was the case with Big Hero 6 and Zootropolis, Moana continues Disney’s upwards trajectory of expertise within the 3D computer generated animation space. The colours are really what makes this film stand out with rich blues, greens, and golden browns. But as well as this there are some fantastic water effects, hair and clothing textures are highly detailed and react naturally, and sand as well looks and reacts really well to various stimuli.
The songs I personally feel are a bit hit and miss in terms of quality. Composed by Mark Mancina with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, I often find that the actual music sounds great with lots of depth to the mix and some great structure to the overall piece…but the lyrics are usually a bit lacking I find. Characters will often repeat words for the rhyme rather than create an actual rhyming couplet, as well as this a lot of the lyrics when broken down are very literal descriptions of what is happening visually, whereas Disney songs are often laden with metaphors to allow the message to ascend to areas visuals simply can’t take us.
Moana continues Disney Animation’s excellent track record within the Revival Era with a gorgeous looking adventure film that’s got a fantastic story at its core. With a great female lead and some long overdue representation for groups often overlooked by Hollywood, Moana ticks all the right boxes for a Revival musical. Whilst the songs can be a little lacking at times, and the middle portion of the story is a bit weak, on the whole Moana is a film you’ll be hard pressed not to thoroughly enjoy.
The songs I personally feel are a bit hit and miss in terms of quality. Composed by Mark Mancina with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, I often find that the actual music sounds great with lots of depth to the mix and some great structure to the overall piece…but the lyrics are usually a bit lacking I find. Characters will often repeat words for the rhyme rather than create an actual rhyming couplet, as well as this a lot of the lyrics when broken down are very literal descriptions of what is happening visually, whereas Disney songs are often laden with metaphors to allow the message to ascend to areas visuals simply can’t take us.
Moana continues Disney Animation’s excellent track record within the Revival Era with a gorgeous looking adventure film that’s got a fantastic story at its core. With a great female lead and some long overdue representation for groups often overlooked by Hollywood, Moana ticks all the right boxes for a Revival musical. Whilst the songs can be a little lacking at times, and the middle portion of the story is a bit weak, on the whole Moana is a film you’ll be hard pressed not to thoroughly enjoy.