Too familiar and probably not presenting the Polynesian characters the way they deserve, Moana is nonetheless a gorgeous film with fun performances that’s worth watching.
Whether you’re talking about Disney Animation Studios, Illumination Entertainment, or Pixar, it’s been one heck of a year for animation on the big screen.
And those are just three of the biggest releases. But there was one title that people were waiting for to close out the year, in part to see if Disney was going to continue their big box office winning ways, which they did.
Moana is the story of the daughter of a chief in a Polynesian tribe who sets out to save her people from an overwhelming mystical threat. She enlists the demigod Maui to help her, in no small part due to the fact that he is the root of the problems in the first place. Why shouldn’t he help fix said problems? She also finds support in the ocean itself, which is a somewhat anthropomorphized sidekick, and a chicken which is not helpful at all.
First and foremost, this is a gorgeous movie to look at. The animation perfectly encapsulates the rich, natural beauty of the region. You can almost feel the ocean breeze blowing in your face, or smell the flowers in the air. You crave the beach after watching this movie.
The voicing is also fantastic. Dwayne Johnson is outstanding a Maui. Newcomer Auli’i Cravalho is exceptional as Moana. They have a natural chemistry on screen that is hard to ignore. Beyond those two main characters, the additional voices provided by the likes of Jermaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, and Alan Tudyk are also fantastic.
And then there’s the music. The combination of Mark Mancina, Opetaia, Foa’i, and Lin-Manuel Miranda produces some of the best music in a movie in years, animated or otherwise. It fits the tone of the movie brilliantly, adding to the beauty of the world depicted in the animation to perfection. The music alone is worth the price of admission.
Then there’s the story.
There’s nothing substantially wrong with it, just that it does feel extremely familiar. The headstrong princess blazes out to fight the evil mystical threat with her cast of misfit sidekicks. This story has been told before, not that there’s anything wrong with that. To someone who has seen a lot of Disney/Pixar animated features, you might feel like you’re treading on previously trodden ground. But even if this story has been done before, it is at least very well executed in Moana.
Maui in particular feels like an extremely familiar character. Poet Karlo Mila very accurately describes this interpretation of Maui as a Disney version of Shrek. He is stripped of any wit, intelligence, or nobility, and is left as oafish, comic relief. Tēvita ʻŌ. Kaʻili made a similar point in discussing that Disney reduced an iconic Polynesian god to a “one-dimensional, selfish, borderline abusive, buffoon.” He also discussed the omission of Hina, Maui’s female counterpart and another key player in the Polynesian pantheon.
Keeping in mind that Johnson does a great job with the character as he’s presented, it does feel like there’s a missed opportunity with Maui and Hina to present strong, driving characters that are representative of the culture and mythology they are drawn from.
The essential point is that Maui did not have to be so cartoonish to be a cartoon.
Like other animated features in 2016, Moana suffers from following Zootopia, which is arguably one of the best and most relevant animated films ever made. Its parallels to Donald Trump’s election playbook were apparent at the time, even more so after those plays paid off. More than that, Zootopia stood out from the pack with a story that attacked racism and intolerance at a core level. It was an unexpected treasure. It’s hard not to compare other animated features to it and they simply do not hold up.
While Moana is a gorgeous film filled with wonderful performances and music, it lacks originality and misses the point in when it comes to the culture it draws from. It’s a good movie but it definitely had the potential to be great.
Regardless, it’s another animated Disney box office juggernaut in a year of animated Disney box office juggernauts.