Review: MOANA

MOANA
★★★
(ANIMATED-MUSICAL/FANTASY) 
Directed by Ron Clements & John Musker
Featuring the Voices of: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temeura Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk, Oscar Knightley
Rated PG for peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements.
103 minutes
Verdict: The first computer-animated feature from prolific Disney directors Ron Clements and John Musker rings with familiarity, a couple of great characters and at least one really good song, even if it plays the 'cute' card a bit heavily at times.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN MOANA IF YOU LIKED:
FROZEN  (2013)
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG  (2009)
ZOOTOPIA  (2016)
TANGLED  (2010)
WRECK-IT RALPH  (2012)

Walt Disney Animation's 56th animated feature film, MOANA, is directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, a partnership that began 30 years ago when they made up half of the four credited directors on the studio's 26th feature, THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE.  They truly cemented their place in the studio's history, however, as the directors of THE LITTLE MERMAID, the movie which kicked off the ten year era of revival later referred to as the "Disney Renaissance," and a movie which, in my opinion, is still the greatest Disney Princess movie (TANGLED and SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS being close contenders).  Clements and Musker then went on to make ALADDIN and HERCULES before their 2002 box office bomb (but kind of underrated) TREASURE PLANET resulted in the decision to cancel all future traditionally-animated features at Disney in order to focus exclusively on computer-animated features, a decision later reversed John Lasseter after being appointed chief creative officer in 2006.  Clements and Musker made a triumphant return soon after and directed THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, a solid but ultimately middling movie that appropriately did solid business at the box office, without exactly lighting things on fire the way THE LITTLE MERMAID or ALADDIN did.  MOANA now marks their first computer-animated film (as their previous films have included computer-animated elements, and in TREASURE PLANET to an extensive degree, MOANA includes elements of traditional animation) as well as a return to the ocean, and results are solid, but it's tough to say whether the film is remarkable in the sense of the more culturally impacting WDA features, of which there are more than a few.

In an original story credited to 7 different people (including Clements and Musker) and inspired by Polynesian mythology, the titular Moana (voiced by newcomer Auli'i Cravalho) is the daughter and heir of a chief (voiced by Temuera Morrison, best known as "Jango Fett" from the Star Wars prequels) in the island village of Mata Nui.  The Chief raises her to keep her concerns to the island and its people, but she takes more after her eccentric Gramma Tala (voiced by Rachel House), who counsels the ocean for guidance and recognizes the will of the ocean for Moana to go on an epic adventure well beyond the island's perilous reef.  As the formerly plentiful resources of Mata Nui begin to wane, Gramma Tala tells Moana that she must set sail to find the trickster demigod Maui (voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) and convince him to help her return the heart of the goddess Te Fiti in order to restore the natural balance.
The main pair of Moana and Maui are what holds the whole thing together, an amusing, feuding partnership that combines familiar elements of Ariel and Sebastian, Aladdin and the Genie, and Hercules and Phil, and Moana's accompanying, exceedingly dim-witted chicken Hei Hei (clucks provided by recurring Disney voice, Alan Tudyk) is occasionally amusing, with a few very funny moments.  Maui, in particular, is interesting, beginning very much in the vein of an obnoxious and selfish foil to Moana, a lot more like a comic sidekick than a fully-fleshed character, but just hints of his background are enough to reveal him to be surprisingly sympathetic. 

The first third or so of the film confined to Moana's island home is feels kind of juvenile and slow compared to other recent WDA movies, and a lot of the humor plays the "cute" angle hard.  It's not bad, but it's once the movie leaves the island that things get interesting, leaning into the slightly more serious and melodramatic angle that was so pivotal to the success of FROZEN, but also with a weird and wacky Clements/Musker flavor, for better and worse (they tend to be self-referential and contemporary in their humor which sometimes feels kitschy).  It's all very solid, certainly more so than FROZEN, but it also never hits the same emotional peaks that made a movie like FROZEN so popular.  It's steadier, and bit weirder.  Again like FROZEN, as well as THE LION KING, the soundtrack for MOANA draws heavily upon cultural influences with powerful throbbing drums and Polynesian war chants, while the songs written by Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda, South Pacific singer-songwriter Opetaia Foa'i and film composer Mark Mancina (previous soundtrack work includes Disney's TARZAN, BROTHER BEAR and THE LION KING) are, again, solid, but not evidently anything all that special.  The best of the bunch "How Far I'll Go" which the folks at Disney apparently agree on as it's the one with a pop version by Alessia Cara playing over the end credits.  It has potential to grow on me, but it's no "Let It Go".  Johnson gets to belt his own number, which is a novelty in itself, with "You're Welcome", regaling tales of his exploits as a hero for humankind in a catchy, jazzy tune that feels particularly of the Clements/Musker brand and gets an end credits cover with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton cast member Jordan Fisher.  Then there's also a really weird song sung by a really weird character (a bling-loving giant crab voiced by Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame) called "Shiny", which had some curiously poignant elements but mostly feels like the inoffensive but mostly obligatory (and strange) villain song of so many animated movies of the '90s.  The rest are inoffensive but not particularly memorable from where I'm currently at.  Disney movies are tricky because, for myself at least, they become better with time and repeated viewings, and they're all pretty comparable to one another.  In the case of FROZEN, its plot holes have begun to appear more egregious with time, but damn it all if "Let It Go" doesn't still give me a rush.  I had inklings of chills during "How Far I'll Go" and its reprises, but I won't be surprised if my opinion on the movie evolves even in the near future.  Where I'm at right now is that I like it a lot, but it feels a lot like what a Disney animated adventure should be, and just on the verge of being something special.

                                                                                                                                                                         Images via Disney