"An adventurous teenager sails out on a daring mission to save her people. During her journey, Moana meets the once-mighty demigod Maui, who guides her in her quest to become a master way-finder. Together they sail across the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous monsters and impossible odds. Along the way, Moana fulfils the ancient quest of her ancestors and discovers the one thing she always sought: her own identity."
Moana is a film, that I was unsure of what to expect. Creating children's films with female leads is becoming more common, but sometimes you find that despite them being the "focus" of the film, they aren't really the focus, and instead fulfil the same tropes as in the past; the skinny, beautiful white girl that exists as a romantic interest with no bearing on the plot. So seeing a movie named "Moana", where the story looks based around a male character "Maui" (voiced by none other than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), I was fearful that this would be a failed attempt at bringing some equality to their movies. But I needn't have worried. Right from the opening scenes, we see that everything revolves around the title character, and in fact, there are no romantic interests introduced in this film at all.
The film begins on the fictional Polynesian island of Motunui (in the real world, Polynesia encompasses around 1000 islands within a triangle that has New Zealand, Hawaii, and the Easter Island as its corners), and does well to provide a brief introduction to the history and culture of the Polynesian islands. It delves into such things as community positions and roles, elders and story-telling, migratory tendencies, and the tattoos role in the culture.
Working our way through Moana's childhood, we skip forward to a time when she must make a decision whether to follow the wishes of her father or those of her grandmother. Now I've mentioned in other Disney reviews how there are so few films that have whole families. There is always a loss somewhere, but this movie deals with it well, weaving in the cultural beliefs of the afterlife into the plot of the film, with characters still able to affect the decisions of the protagonist (so good job to the writers there). The film is reasonably serious. There are a lot of dangerous situations, but they are approached in a light-hearted way that doesn't detract from the message in any way. Moana's animal companions provide a great source of hilarity, (Heihei the rooster is great, even if a little comparable in the role to that of Scrat in the Ice Age franchise). The plot has a weight to it, that is crushing insignificance, and while there are successes along the way, there are many failures, that keep you guessing as to the direction that it will go.
One of the aspects that I loved the most, was the animated tattoos of Maui. It effectively introduces an additional mute character, that acted as a conscience for the demigod, as well as keeping track of who comes out on top of any disagreements, providing some great comedy too. It helped to create more banter in situations that would otherwise come across as stale, allowing characters to voice concerns and thought processes without it feeling too forced.
On the other hand, I was a little sceptical of the songs. After Frozen's 'Let It Go', I think everyone is hoping that no other songs are as infectious as it was, though it appears that Disney is trying to replicate it with the tune "How Far I'll Go". The song has similarities to 'Let It Go' (the titles alone are similar sounding), and the song is revisited on multiple occasions throughout the film, with variations in lyrics to mirror the changes in the plot. With the song itself, there is nothing wrong. My main irk with the songs comes with the style of song. While the vocal attributes during discussions and conversations are quite similar to those of the Polynesian communities, during some, the style immediately changes (I suppose you could say it sounds American?). Very catchy songs (you'll be singing "You're Welcome" on the drive home), but I just wish it fitted in better in the film vocally.
Visually, the film is beautiful. The environments are lush, the colours are bright, and the blacks are dark. The environments do tend to vary a little between life-like computer-generated textures, and cartoony effects. Despite the clearly unscientific plot and animated look of the film, it portrays itself amazingly well, tugging at my heartstrings during many moments. I legitimately felt saddened when I realised how far the film had progressed, and it dawned on me that the movie was coming to an end soon; I could have easily watched it for another hour without getting bored. A film I would definitely recommend watching (and maybe buying the soundtrack too).
Originally posted to: http://djin.nz/Kr7407