Moana

Year: 2016
Genre: Animated Musical
Stars: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk, Oscar Kightley, Louise Bush
Directed: Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, Chris Williams
Production: Disney Animated Studios

Disney's newest incarnation of the Disney Princess brand, comes chalked full of Disney whimsy, high-quality Disney grade animation, all set to memorable Disney songs and time-tested Disney formula. Did I mention Moana is a Disney movie? The thing about Disney though is you can't argue with its results. They know what their doing and even when they prove the most craven to make a buck, we still absolutely love them for it. I love them!

All hail our overlords!

And I also love Moana, an original story based on ancient Polynesian legends and folklore. The movie tells the tale of a youthful chieftan's daughter (Cravalho) who goes on a glorious adventure; aided by an unwilling Demigod named Maui (Johnson). Seems before the time of humans, Maui stole an artifact from the God, Te Fiti and after losing it in glorious battle, the islands of the South Pacific are cursed. A millenia later, the curse has spread to Moana's island where she and her village squabble over what to do. Her father, an isolationist-type simply wants to grow coconut groves on another part of the island. Moana on the other hand believes the legends of Maui and his magical fishhook, and casts off to return the artifact to Te Fiti.

We no longer need no man!

As with quite a few films marking Disney's ought-10 renaissance, Moana liberally tailors itself to a well-worn formula with a 21st century twist that would seem aggressive, if not for the fact that the film is a Disney cartoon. In Moana's case, our protagonist is a strong independent woman who goes on a perilous adventure with an animal sidekick but she doesn't fall in love or find herself needing to be rescued. This is despite that fact that she is wayfinding with literally the only guy on the open ocean for thousands of miles and the man is a muscular, heroic Demigod.

The difference here however is nearly nothing she does is a result of, nor contrary to, the limitations of traditional gender roles. She is (of course) forbidden to venture beyond the reef of her island by her father, but not because she's a dainty, pretty thing that needs to be protected. No, it's because no one is allowed outside the reef. Maui, at first finds her useless but not because of her gender but rather because she's a product of generations of Polynesians who never sailed before. Finally when she proves herself capable of everything we need a hero in this story to be, none of it feels like a fissure in the fabric of a society. The gender politics of Moana are a big deal precisely because none of it is a big deal.

This in addition to being a well researched, respectable, if Disney-fied travelogue on Polynesian culture puts this flick above the mark as far as decent family-oriented fare. The music, while not as memorable as Frozen (2015), still has an undeniable crackle. Think Lin-Manuel Miranda's "In the Heights" soundtrack partially sung in Tokelauan and you get an idea on how textured, fun and witty the songs can be.

Moana is fun, Moana is scrappy, Moana is...well, Moana, for all it's pleasures is still guided by the exact same hero's journey story structures that have defined animated movies for well over a generation. Does that make the film bad; of course not. But when it gets painfully obvious the film is filling for time, the obvious structure prevents the film from truly being great.

Final Grade: B