Moana Review!
Disney's next big hit is a visual smorgasbord, but alas it doesn't have as much depth as their recent releases have had. There are a lot of good moments, and characters within Moana, but what really distanced me from this film was that it felt like story was put third or fourth on Disney's priority list, and I found this film to be more of what is expected from Disney, thus Moana is a good standard Disney film in my eyes.
Animation is done really well for this movie, colors pop and characters are electric to watch on screen. The water itself is beautiful, and Disney is really showing why they are the top animation studio around from this film and their earlier release Zootopia. Moana brings a lot of happiness to the audience, but I found that a lot of the pivotal scenes for these characters were really underutilized.
I believe that Moana has good characters. The main heroine is a delight, and her musical numbers are particularly enjoyable, even though Disney had to argue why she is a princess in her own film. You can't go wrong with Dwayne Johnson, especially when he inhabits such an energetic character like Maui. He's a delight, and his little arguments with the main heroine will put a smile on anyone's face. Other than them you have the disapproving father, comic relief strange animal pet, and the destructive villain.
What Moana really brings to the table that is different from past musicals is the music itself. It's not going to stick into your head like "Let it snow" or fade away like the music from Tangled. The songs are energetic, accompanied by very vivid imagery, and will make you toe tapping in the theater while putting that warm good feeling inside your heart, but I don't think the songs will stick with you weeks after seeing the movie.
My biggest problem with Moana is how they handled the character development. Normally in animated musicals you'll have the character sing about their troubles and then do something about it, and their next song would be them overcoming it. Moana does this a bit differently. They do the song, but through the song the character is achieving their change via montage. For example, at the beginning of the film the main heroine is a kid and is facinated by travelling across the ocean, but it's forbidden to leave the island unless you're fishing. So, through song and montage you see the girl try to escape only to be captured by her father, and once the song is over the girl is grown up and has all her father's ideals. Now, the film has to go back and undo that character development she had so that she can escape the island and find Maui. Again, montage and song are interconnected in this film, so much so that when there is character change within the montage it feels forced to me. They spent two minutes singing their hearts out, and going from one quick scene to another in order to advance their characters, and for me that felt like a cheat as I never fully got invested in any single character, and by the time the third act came up I was wondering why these characters are doing what they're doing.
Moana felt like a film with a great concept, but had weak connective tissue and trouble going from one scene/plot point to the next. Because of that we get three to four montages, and a rushed ending. Seriously, the third act starts with Dwayne Johnson leaving the main heroine, only for her to go against the main villain, only to be saved by Johnson for no apparent reason. We have no idea what changed Johnson's mind, and the whole third act just felt so uninspired to the point where I thought I was watching a boss battle to an old video game.
Overall Moana is an enjoyable Disney movie, but to me it's far from great. The visuals and the songs are what really stand out, but the way the film handles its characters is a problem, and the third act felt oddly rushed and tacked on. This film had a great concept, but a standard execution.
C+
