Matt Reviews: Moana

WARNING: SPOILERS for MOANA follow. You're welcome.

I have this problem with Disney movies: Whenever I don’t see them in theaters, people go nuts over how good they are, forcing me to see them as soon as they are released on DVD to join in on the hype. It’s happened with Frozen, Inside Out, Zootopia, and now Moana.

Long ago, the shape-shifting trickster demigod Maui (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) stole the life-giving heart of the god Te Fiti, which incurred the wrath of the demon Te Ka and caused a darkness to start spreading throughout the world that will eventually snuff out all life. On a distant island, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) – the chief’s daughter – is chosen by the ocean to return the heart to Te Fiti, against the wishes of her father, who wants her to be training to be the new chief. After wrangling Maui into her quest, the two journey across a dangerous sea of monsters to return the heart and save the world from dying out.

The girl playing Moana must be praised extensively for her performance. Not only does she provide great emotional and comedic material, not only does she have an amazing singing voice, not only does she do all this at only sixteen years old, but this is her first professional acting role. Ever. She managed to get the lead in a Disney movie as her first gig, beating out countless others who auditioned before her, most of which probably had the years of experience that she had not. Kudos to you, Auli’i. Let’s hope this is the start of something great.

Dwayne Johnson was also a surprise in his role as Maui. Yes, Maui does have the typical boisterous, “Can You Smell What the Rock is Cooking?” attitude that many other Dwayne Johnson characters have, but as the film goes on and Maui matures, we get to see some truly believable emotional acting from Johnson. It’s a side of him you don’t often see, but a side I hope films show more of in the future. Also, the Rock can sing. He’s not the greatest singer in the movie, but he can carry a tune, and I’m just shocked that he has that much musical talent to begin with.

"You will board my boat and take me to the Incredibles sequel."

 Like many other modern Disney films, Moana works hard to subvert many of the classic Disney tropes and clichés, which sometimes just causes more clichés. Moana is the “princess who wants more than what her normal life gives her” character – like Jasmine or Belle – but the film manages to distinguish itself in two fields:

First off, Moana isn’t technically a princess. She’s a chief’s daughter. Now automatically, this just sounds like splitting hairs and just me saying “She’s not a princess because her title is different, HA! Loophole!” But as the chief’s daughter, Moana is much closer with the labor and everyday governing of her people than I think we’ve ever seen with other Disney Princesses. Moana suggests ways to better the islanders’ way of life and is actively training to be a future ruler. Rather than just sitting pretty waiting for a prince to come and kiss her awake, or strictly rebelling against her family’s traditions from the get-go, she actually works on ruling her kingdom.

Secondly, Moana doesn’t have a love interest, and there’s no romance element in the movie. At all. (Well, except for a brief moment where a younger kid tries hitting on Moana early in the movie, but that doesn’t count!) This is especially notable because so many subversive Disney movies like this try to downplay the traditional “prince-and-princess” romance aspect and by giving the characters more chemistry and making their romance more believable – like in Frozen, Tangled, Aladdin, etc. But in this movie, there’s no prince, no love interest, and no romance. Moana is strictly business. The only two interacting characters for the majority of the movie are Moana and Maui – a girl and a boy – and by the end, they’re still just friends. It’s not like in Zootopia where the opposite gendered friends are just friends but you can definitely feel the romantic subtext. Moana and Maui are like brother and sister: completely platonic in every sense of the word.

The film also works to subvert a few other classic aspects of Disney movies, like the animal sidekick trope. From the advertisements, it would appear that Pua the pig would be the animal company that would follow Moana on her adventure. Nope. It’s Hei Hei, the chicken who’s almost entirely too dumb to live. I freaking love this character. He’s hilarious in how unfathomable his stupidity is – considering most of his near-death experiences in the movie come from him blindly walking off the boat – and he’s a refreshing change of pace for Disney animal sidekicks. From the limited screentime he had, Pua just seemed like other adorable, nonverbal animal companions from Disney movies, like Sven from Frozen or Cri-Kee from Mulan. Hei Hei adds a dollop of originality to this classic trope, and his self-destructive ignorance also provides Moana and Maui with an additional challenge at times.

The rooster has seen when the endtimes will come, but can not communicate it. He screams, for that is all he can do.

 Moana even plays with repeated tropes from recent Disney films. The past three animated Disney movies have had a “surprise villain” – someone who was thought to be a good guy, but turned out to be evil all along by the film’s climax  (see Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia). At first it was kind of clever, but when every new Disney movie was doing it, it started to get old and predictable. Moana, however, subverts that by having the bad guy turn out to be not so bad all along. The choice to have Te Ka turn out to be an angry, transformed Te Fiti all along was unexpected, especially when the past few movies decided to have a good guy be evil. This decision allowed the finale to be much more emotional, as it was not about defeated the unstoppable forces of evil, but reaching out to the goodness inside of a being that has been wrong and made inconsolably furious.

However, the movie still feels the need to strictly enforce other Disney cliches, like the death of a family member. Sure, Moana has both of her parents, and both survive to see the finale, but her grandmother suddenly perishes from “Being a Parental Figure in a Disney Movie” Syndrome. Seriously, one scene she’s perfectly fine, then the very next one she’s on her deathbed. Did I miss something here? Yes, it's an emotional moment and it allows her to go all Force Ghost mentor later on in the film, but it still feels incredibly tacked-on and sudden.

Of course, you can’t talk about a Disney movie without discussing the musical numbers (Unless it’s not a musical, in which case there’s nothing to talk about). Moana’s sountrack has a nice, tropical sound to courtesy of songwriter and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. In every song, you can feel the rich Polynesian heritage that the movie does so well to represent. “How Far I’ll Go” is definitely the “Let it Go” of this movie: powerful, emotional, and sung by a woman with a brilliant voice. (Let’s just hope it doesn’t get overplayed to hell and back…) “You’re Welcome” is nice and catchy – nicely showing off the Rock’s musical talents – and “Where You Are” is a jaunty way to open up the movie and introduce us to Moana’s people. “We Know the Way” is one of the most beautiful songs in the movie, sung by Miranda himself and partially performed in the native language of the Polynesian people. I kind of wish the whole song was sung in this language; it just sounds so cool, different, and fully emerged in the culture of the Pacific Islands. “Shiny” is a great villain song performed by Tamatoa, the giant, treasure-encrusted crab voiced by Flight of the Concord’s Jermaine Clement. This song opts to forgo the Polynesian sound of the rest of the numbers and instead presents itself in the style of a glitzy, David Bowie-esque glam rock ballad. This was the only song from the movie I heard before watching it, and I may have listened to it over and over again until I knew most of the lyrics. Disney villains always have the best songs, and this one is no exception.

"There's a staaaaar craaaab waiting in the sky/He'd like to come and eat us/But he thinks we're not shiny."

 On the topic of Tamatoa, I feel it would have been interesting to have him as the main villain instead of Te Ka. While Te Ka is definitely intimidating and has the sympathetic backstory, there’s not really a ton of personality there - just intimidation and fireball throwing. Tamatoa is brimming with personality and serves to be a great foil for Maui: both are long-lived egotists who let their greatness be defined by material objects to make up for their shortcomings. While I am grateful that his scene served to reveal some key information about Maui’s background and character development, making Tamatoa the primary antagonist would have elevated him from just being one of the most memorable parts of the movie to another great, vanity-obsessed Disney villain.

The visuals in this movie are also a feast for the eyes. Most of this movie takes place on the ocean, and that’s clearly where the Disney animators’ talents shine through the most. There were points where the water effects looked so realistic, I forgot that I was watching an animated movie. Moana’s hair also has realistic physics, and the islands and landscapes all look incredibly detailed. Frozen showed how well Disney could show off the beauty of snow and ice, and Moana shows that they can do just as well with the opposite climate.

Moana had a lot to live up to seeing as how the previous animated Disney flick – Zootopia – quickly became one of my favorites. While I don’t think it blew me away as much as Zootopia did, Moana is still an incredibly solid, beautiful Disney movie that should not be missed. I might like it better than Frozen, though that might just be because I’m sick of seeing Frozen everywhere.

Unless I’m forgetting one, this is Disney’s first movie since Hercules to tackle foreign mythologies (not counting the Thor movies) and the first one to depict a non-white mythology at that. Considering how well this one turned out, maybe this will inspire Disney to make princess films based on other ethnic mythologies, like African or Hindu.

Final verdict: 8.5/10

Now, who’s waiting for Moana to be included as one of the worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3? Come on, a Heartless Tamatoa fight would be kickin’!