3.8/5 Bones
Initial release: November 23, 2016
Directors: John Musker, Ron Clements
Production Company: Disney Animation
Music: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i, Mark Mancina
The story: Moana lives on a Pacific Island that’s slowly dying. Her grandmother tells her that’s because a 1000 years ago, the Heart of the Sea was stolen by the demi-god Maui, who lost it when he was attacked. With the Mcguffin no longer there to mystically protect the ocean, evil monsters now roam the waters and sickness drains the life of the islands. Only Maui can restore the Heart, but he’s been banished to a distant island while the source of all his power, his fishhook, has been stolen away. Moana is ‘chosen’ by the sea to be the one to fetch Maui and restore balance, yaddiyada.
This is very ‘Classic’ Disney, but with a modern flair here and there. In particular, it’s nice that the ‘magic’ characters get to be good guys now. Maui is how I remember him from the myths - arrogant, but heroic, flawed but ever changing. It’s so nice that Disney has a shapeshifting character to play around with again. His sidekick ‘Tattoo’ character is also a nice use of 2D animation and quite funny. Moana’s also clearly had a lot of thought put into her. She wants to explore the world, but is also accepting of her duty. She respects her father, but also seeks advice from her renegade grandmother and treasures her. I love how the grandmother is woven into this plot. She does remind me of Grandmother Willow, whom Pocahontas used to turn to for common sense wisdom and spiritual guidance. But Moana’s grandmother’s representation feels much more involved and relevant to the story and likely to jerk a tear out of someone.
As for the villain - well, there isn’t really one. There are obstacles, sure, characters who get in way for brief segments, much like the Odyssey. Each is overcome, and the story attempts to put the focus on Maui and Moana’s relationship. Which is something I’ve wanted Disney to do for a long, long time, so no complaints here! Moana wants Maui’s respect and knowledge, while Maui’s need for worship and praise keeps him from relating on a human level with Moana. Now, this isn’t done badly at all - it’s done pretty well. I enjoyed it and followed it easily enough. But to be honest, when the hefty emotional points came, I didn’t really feel it. It just seemed like ‘Well, this is the part of the story where this is supposed to happen, so…” That was frustrating. Also, when you get right down to it, it felt like Moana and Maui were only on their boat for a few days. Sure, there’s a montage implying it might’ve been longer, but their adventures are few before arriving at their destination. Like, they have two. I think one more would have been good. There’s a moment when the two are split up and Moana begins to succumb to despair. I think holding that moment and giving her an obstacle that represented that weight and hopelessness would have given us time to linger, so as to savour the coming together and triumph that must inevitably follow. Something so we can feel the ups and downs of their relationship and be allowed to wallow in the downs, instead of treating them like wacky comedy. And that’s the problem - Moana has parts where you are supposed to feel sad, but it speeds through them or just gives you a rough visual with sad faces. But without giving time to those moments, they flit by. The exceptions are scenes with Moana and her grandmother. The animation and writing finds a real relationship there, which it builds from the beginning and so is meaningful when it finds moments to just let the two speak to one another.
There really is lots to love about Moana, in particular its respectful lionizing of Polynesian culture. I’ll bet loads of kids are going to be looking for books on Maui and other Polynesian gods after seeing this (or after playing Pokémon Sun & Moon. Good times for Hawaii, huh?). It should be after my own heart, what with its relationship-based story, mythology, beautiful visuals and stand out songs - but somehow I left feeling like ‘Yeah, that was fine.’ And that’s it. While after leaving Zootopia, I was immediately making plans to return the next week. And the week after. And buying the super-duper special edition Blu-Ray and reading all the children’s books at the Shopper’s that had Judy on the cover. I think this is one of those cases where Disney’s B film turned out the more risk-taking and superior film against the expectation-laden and traditional ‘A’ film. Huh, kinda like Pocahontas and The Lion King. But seriously, this is so much better than Pocahontas, and I know it’s going to be someone’s favourite movie, which is still pretty special. At the very least I’m going to be humming “We Know the Way” and “You’re Welcome” for a long time yet.
I wonder what film Disney should apologize for next. Maybe Home on the Range, the film that killed theatrical 2D. Or the horror that was Chicken Little. How about those goddawful talking bird grandpas in Dinosaur? What about all those direct-to-VHS sequels? How about all those hours of therapy logged for all the terrifying death sequences? My god, Disney, you’d better get your nose back to that grindstone and start your celluloid atonement straightaway. And you better stay there, because the Disney Revival is here to stay, baby!
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What? I got two Disney Animated Movies for 2016 and now it’s a total drought until 2018? This had better be enough to tide me over. Man, am I going to be blue...very blue...just in a big blue. Sea what I mean?
And you thought I got this out my system with Finding Dory. Ha ha!!
But seriously, what a great year for animated movies. So much variety, with France putting out aesthetically creative films like The Red Turtle, April and the Extraordinary World and Phantom Boy, Pixar giving us the thoughtful characters and cuteness overload that was Finding Dory, and Disney delivering two stellar animated works in Zootopia and now, Moana. Heck, I think you can include The Jungle Book in there, since that was 95% animated. Sure, Dreamworks is dying a slow painful death but even Trolls was the best movie that could have been made from such poor choices. I got through it happily and liked it! And as for LAIKA, they delivered a new classic that was as stunning as it was considered in Kubo and the Two Strings. Meanwhile, Sausage Party was an unexpected and refreshing delight. And there were so many more I missed - Kung Fu Panda 3, The Secret Life of Pets, Storks, Your Name - all on my to-do list, I swear. Sure, there were misfires - The Wild Life, Norm of the North, Ice Age 99: Aren’t they Extinct Yet?, and so forth. But that just means that the medium has grown so large that just like rest of film, it can still have its real stinkers and be valued anyway. But seriously, you’re just hurting people now, Ice Age.
I know that payment is coming in 2017. A quick look at the calendar gives us...The Emoji Movie, Sword Art Online: The Movie, Boss Baby, Cars 3, Smurfs: The Lost Village, Despicable Me: 3 - Oh no, no, NO - someone stop me before I chop off the hands of every creative person in the world to prevent this animacalypse...oh wait, there’s two logs I can lash together to make a raft with which to attempt to weather this storm of EUCH. Pixar’s Coco and The Lego Batman Movie, which is looking amazingly good for all the elements that should be tripping it up (i.e. blatant product placement and being a DC movie). But just two movies to sustain me all year? Who knows, perhaps Blazing Samurai will save the day. What’s that looking like?
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Oh.
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