After the mammoth success of Frozen three years ago, Disney’s eagerness for lightning to strike twice has garnered them an Oscar in the interim, even while failing to mimic the Snow Queen’s merchandise bonanza. Their latest animated venture, Moana, is a perfect storm of popular elements; Disney’s directorial dream team of John Musker and Ron Clements, coupled with Hamilton wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda for a few songs, add a spunky new heroine and an A-list vocal cast. The results are beautiful, one of the Mouse House’s most sumptuous looking films from an animation standpoint, though the script doesn’t know which tone leads home.
Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) lives on the Polynesian island of Motunui where no one ever goes beyond the reef. When Moana’s home starts dying, it is up to her to cross the seas, find the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and restore the heart of Te Fiti. Moana’s Polynesian flavor is the film’s unique facet, and it is appropriately breathtaking. The island of Motunui is a paradise of rich green foliage with a sea so blue you understand why “no one ever leaves.” The animator’s expansive color palette doesn’t stop at bright tropical colors, though moments of anything that doesn’t pop are rare. A scene of Moana and her parents inside a house at night showcases a range of warm, honeyed browns accented in the torchlight.
Praise also goes out to the animators of Moana, the character. Despite having the typical “Disney Princess” look—big eyes, defined cheeks—Moana’s hair is meticulously animated unlike any character we’ve previously seen. The chronic jokes about wet hair in the face grow stale, but it’s refreshing to see a female character know her hair is cumbersome, even rocking a ponytail at one point.
The characterization, accompanied by Polynesian voice actors, is strong. Newcomer Cravalho is amazing as the voice of Moana. Jared Bush’s screenplay opens Cravalho’s vocal work to a wealth of beats that feel improvised, and for someone with no prior credits to her name, Cravalho is great at comedic timing. Huffy, determined and a fun comedienne—“Fish pee in you! All day!”—the film displays the voice actress as a bright new star. Dwayne Johnson is the film’s biggest name, overshadowing the title character in its marketing, but he’s a bundle of fun as the hulking demigod Maui. He and Moana work perfectly as a team, and though Moana’s motivations are far superior to Maui’s, he’s a great foil for her blinding need to save her people. Other performances from the likes of Nicole Scherzinger and Jemaine Clement are wonderful to hear.
Having personified the “you are who you choose to be” mentality in works like Aladdin, Hercules and The Princess and the Frog, it’s not surprising Moana falls right under the wheelhouse of directorial duo Musker and Clements. Maui calls Moana out as “the chosen one,” selected by the sea to find the demigod and use him to restore the Heart of Te Fiti. In nearly everything, short of the tropical locale, Moana absorbs from past Disney successes. Her feisty desire to strike out on her own at the risk of her father’s wrath is reminiscent of The Little Mermaid (with a subplot involving her family’s fear of the sea ripped from The Little Mermaid 2); she’s paired up with a literal god, a la Mulan; there’s even a “dumb” bird that’s practically Becky, sans good hair, from the recent Finding Dory. Going outside the lines isn’t something Disney does frequently, but Moana’s comparisons are so overt as to feel stitched together.
It’s the songs that suffer the most from this patchwork of influences. Musker and Clements’ past successes, Aladdin especially, worked in spite of rebelling against a specific tone. Not every song needs to fit, but the ones that don’t fit Moana stick out like a pig at a BBQ. Maybe this explains why it sounds as if there are fewer songs overall (10 sparsely parceled out). Opetaia Foa’i and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs for Moana’s village have a beating, Polynesian drive reminiscent of Lilo & Stitch’s “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride.” “I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)” is the movie’s “Let It Go” moment and it’s beautiful, if over far too quickly. Other songs, though, are just odd. Clement’s “Shiny,” a neon-tinged ode to treasure sung by a crab has a few too many David Bowie influences, akin to the “Chilly Down” song from Labyrinth. Johnson’s “You’re Welcome” is a fun, “In Summer”-esque song you’d have heard in Hercules that’s snappy, but doesn’t fit.
Preceding Moana is the short “Inner Workings” that’s almost superior to the actual feature. It follows a guy named Paul whose heart and brain don’t agree on what he should do with his life. It’s a heartfelt, and all too authentic, tribute to the people who live to work, and how to find spontaneity within drudgery. Regardless of your thoughts on the film, make time to see “Inner Workings.”
Moana will definitely entice children and adults in spite of its flaws, and boarding her boat makes for an entertaining ride. The characters and animation are fantastic and there are an abundance of laugh lines—and Alan Tudyk’s chicken Heihei steals every scene. Whether it’ll have a lasting legacy, become a cult gem or fade into Disney obscurity, only time will tell. We’re nowhere near capturing Frozen’s siren call, though being compared to The Princess and the Frog ain’t too bad.
The post Moana appeared first on Spectrum Culture.