Most people that know me well, know that I am a pretty huge Disney fan. I get it from my family. Since I was kid, we would watch all the Disney classics, to every Pixar/Disney flick that comes out each year. I’ve visited Disneyland on numerous occasions, and played Disney Trivia with my family enough to know that it isn’t even worth competing against my parents in that history.
So with this in mind, I went out to see Disney’s newest adventure, Moana, with both excitement, and trepidation. I loved the animated Disney classic musicals, but some of their most recent additions, Tangled and Frozen, left me disappointed, and altogether bored.
Moana was different. This venture is into a whole new culture that Disney has not really touched before in Polynesia. Introducing Auli’i Cravalho, the headstrong and motivated dreamer as the titular character, Moana is the story of a young girl, the daughter of the chieftain of her village who yearns to go out and explore the world beyond her island, but feels trapped by her overbearing father who will not permit anyone to leave. On her journey, she meets Maui, played by the cultural icon Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the demigod who held up the sky, pulled the islands out of the sea, and stole fire for humans. She forces him to assist her on her quest to save her island. We follow our main characters as they journey not only out into the world, but into themselves as well.
Now I have a lot of praise for the movie, more praise than I have had for an animated Disney movie in a while, but nothing is perfect. It is by no means new. There have been thousands of stories that follow this same basic plot, especially Disney. The story isn’t what is new for them, it’s the setting.
And there are not really many big surprises with the characters or their arcs. Moana is an adventurous teen, who learns to be confident in herself and her decisions, and to stand up for herself. Maui is a braggart, who is hiding his insecurities but slowly learns to accept them for part of what makes him great. Two, very par for the course characters that can practically be yanked out of any other Disney movie.
While it is a basic story, what is important is how the story is told. Their take on this story brings public attention to the culture of Polynesian people, and the little nuances that show Disney really did their research. The absolutely stunning setting centers around the seafaring and wayfinding that is so critical to the Indigenous Polynesian history. ‘The Rock’ is as charismatic as it gets, and his role suits him perfectly. He steals every scene he’s in, and he works well with the up-and-comer Cravalho. The music, while maybe not to everyone’s tastes, was a sign of immense creativity and dedication to the source material. I personally loved it, and thought it as one of the star points of the film, but those are my tastes.
This story is another step forward in Disney’s trek into modernism. No one in the movie makes a big deal about the fact that Moana, a girl, is going to be the future leader of her village. Everyone knows it as a fact, and the movie shows no fuss about it. It is fantastic to see a family movie like this, where children can see a girl naturally in such a leadership role. The one character who brings any attention to it is Maui, who constantly calls Moana a Princess. But as she states, she is not a princess, she is the daughter of the chieftain, and the future chieftain.
Moana is by no means perfect, but I think it is a brilliant uptake on the original Disney formula that I highly recommend anyone go out and see.