Moana: Vivid and Vibrant

Whatever your thoughts on Disney's penchant for swooping down on obscure cultural legends to repeatedly mine fuel for their never-ending line of princess tales, sometimes you can't deny the view. A collection of different Polynesian myths, 2016's Moana is one of the most beautifully animated movies I've ever seen - yes, much more so than its own sequel - while also being a vigorously living and irresistibly likable character drama with a colorful cast of well-drawn characters, the most interesting being Disney's very own interpretation of Maui, a famed demigod and folk hero of pacific islander mythology. With a practically perfect world this beautifully realized, you can't help empathizing with the colorful tribes inhabiting it and their scramble to stop the spread of a methodical, corrosive darkness from somewhere beyond the reef, a treacherously shallow stretch of water that's broken up enough boats for the village chief of one particular group of islanders to institute a ban on traveling beyond it. And given that the big man makes the rules, it's natural that his daughter would be the one to want to break them. Look, I never said Moana was fresh. On the converse, it's as topically stale as a can of sardines left in the Polynesian sun for a day too long. Disney somehow still makes it taste delicious.

The ocean of Moana is one of the most gorgeous spectacles I've ever witnessed in a Disney animated film. Ever. A colorful and magical audio-visual feast treated with an amazing level of awe and respect, Moana believes that the ocean is fascinating, so it turns out to be just that, in more ways than one. The sea is both beautiful and treacherous, and it amazed me how it could turn from one to the other and back again on a dime. I imagine you walked into this film with the idea of seeing Moana instead of the ocean she needs to traverse, but the water often steals the spotlight nonetheless. Still, don't discount the music of Moana. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a respected figure in the musical community, and rightfully so. You probably know that his work on Moana is spectacular as ever. One of my favorite moments in this movie features a brilliantly intelligent montage, via song, of a chief's daughter growing up anything but needing to explore the ocean when her father has expressly forbidden it. It takes a coming-of-age element, an aspect that could have easily turned into a stumbling block for the pacing of Moana, and instead turns it into a smart and colorful musical number. What I'm trying to say is that Moana makes complete and brilliant use of its musical medium, working with it rather than around it. If you're wondering how far it goes while singing, I'm telling you it goes far.

It goes far in part - a big part - because of its population of colorful and fascinating characters, which kids' movies are often more adept at realizing, for some reason. While Moana herself is little more than a very well-executed play on familiar tropes, her demigod partner, the big and big-mouthed Maui, is a sincerely memorable supporting character. From his spotlight-grabbing, moving tattoos to his absurdly massive form, he's a brilliantly designed and charismatically surprising character who almost completely steals the show, as traditionally excellent Disney supporting characters are prone to do. He and Moana play brilliantly off each other, like bickering siblings in the back seat of a car who never grow tiring because you're watching them on a screen instead of driving them for yourself. The villains of Moana, though used sparingly, are just as interesting, if not even more so. Take Tamatoa, for instance, a massive and massively greedy crab with a penchant for glamour and groove and a weird level of similarity to King George from Hamilton, which I like to imagine is Lin-Manuel Miranda tapping us on the shoulder and saying, hey! I worked on this movie! Tamatoa's music number is an absolute scene-stealer, and the only thing wrong with it is that it's too short.

As for the story itself, it's as predictable as a two-year-old with insomnia, and while I understand that kids' movies tend to be more formulaic by necessity, this is a story we've seen done before, and for as much imagination as the team behind it put into the world and the characters, that same imagination is lacking on the narrative side of things. Is it unfair to complain about graspability in a kids' film? Possibly. And yet, I think it's ironic that Moana is so familiar for a movie that's supposed to be about an adventure. Still, the journey is undeniably beautiful. Like I said at this article's beginning, you can't deny the view. The light is magnificent when it shines on the sea, even if the ocean is a familiar sight to some of us.

This movie has been one of my favorite Disney animated features for some time, and for good reason. Despite some level of narrative predictability, Moana stays interesting throughout in many more ways than it even needs to, among them absolutely stunning animation that almost makes the most interesting character of this world the world itself. Fortunately, a cast of fascinating characters keeps that from being the case. Maui is a standout, a swaggering and boisterously buff demigod with attitude. I probably don't need to tell you that Disney's relationship with animated films has become complicated recently, with hit-and-miss quality on top of a serious drop in publicity and box office earnings. Moana is one of the last Disney films I can point to and say, yes, this is a movie I think of when I think of Disney, not because of the values it holds, but rather because of the vibrancy it possesses. It's pureblood fantasy, a story where too many movies settle for a statement instead.

Moana - 9/10

Jeremiah 5:22