Review – Moana

Disney has done it again.  Moana is simply dazzling.  A sweet, funny, heartfelt film with beautiful animation and spectacular voice work.

Moana is about a young girl named Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho), the destined princess of her tribe, though she feels there is more to her life than following in her father’s footsteps.  When her tribe and island are in danger, Moana adventures out to save them, by sailing the high seas in search of demi God Maui (voiced by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) to help her find a stone that will save her village.

One of the great things Disney does is take familiar stories we’ve seen a hundred times and make it seem fresh and new.  We’ve seen the “princess wants more to her life” story in movies like Aladdin (1992), and that’s essentially the core story of Moana.  But, this never seems dry or cliché.  This is a completely new adventure.  It takes us to a world we have never been before, with unique, rich characters unlike any Disney has ever produced.  It is an action-adventure, coming of age, road, buddy comedy all rolled into one spectacular vision.  It is a film that deals with spirituality and destiny, and coming into your own.  Who says kids movies can’t be complex?

Like all great Disney movies, we get a slew of original songs that are uniformly great.  Who knew The Rock could sing?  He gets his own hilariously arrogant number, ‘You’re Welcome’, that gives us the full image of this demi God and what he is all about.  The standout song is Moana’s power ballad, ‘How Far I’ll Go’, which is destined to become the new ‘Let It Go’ (it’s actually better, in my opinion).

The animation is jaw-dropping.  The human characters look so realistic, you can feel the texture of their skin.  The aerial shots of the lands and the water are astounding.  This is as bright and colorful as movies get, and the unique story allows for the animators to do a number of cool things, like giving Maui’s tattoos mobility and a personality, along with what the water does to help Moana.  This rivals Kubo and the Two Strings in terms of best animation of 2016.

The voice work is by Cravalho and Johnson are perfect, each lending their own personality to the characters.  Johnson is as charismatic as ever as Maui.  The ripped, tattooed legend got his name by being resourceful and smart on the seas, yet made him cocky.  However, he does have a wild, funny side and is a bit of a sweetheart.  I could totally see Johnson playing a live-action version of this character, as it is everything his is and more.  Cravalho makes Moana one of my favorite Disney princesses in recent memory.  She kicks some serious ass by going up against demi Gods, giant crabs, and lava monsters in order to save her family and her tribe.  It is awesome to see such a strong, diverse female character in a Disney movie.

Disney is two for two this year, with Zootopia and now Moana.  This is a visually stunning, deeply themed movie with fantastic voice work and relevant messages.  2016 is the year of animation and Moana is one of the best.

MY RATING – 3.5/4

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