Moana
A review
Disney can’t seem to help themselves. They keep outdoing themselves at every turn and Moana is another strong entry in their already stellar 2016 outing. This is the second animation from Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2016; the first being Zootopia and in my humble opinion it (Moana) is way better than Zootopia could ever hope to be.
It has taken me a bit of time to wrap my head around what I want to do with this but I think I have gotten it down.
Moana tells the indigenous story of a young adventurous Polynesian girl (Moana Waialiki voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) who longs to explore the islands around her rather than be stuck on her home island. As a result of her outgoing and curious nature, she gets involved in an adventure that involves a demi-god, a somewhat sentient ocean and a larva monster.
It is a beautiful coming of age story that builds on a non-traditional (read non-Caucasian) story focusing on a complete female lead character. The reason I use “complete” as opposed to “strong”, is the fact that she isn’t a girl trying to be strong, she isn’t portrayed as a girl who just has to be the macho version of a man but instead she is simply a girl who has been tasked with a purpose and makes herself available to learn and grow into who she is meant to be.
It is such a refreshing story and it will make you smile, it will make you sombre and it will make you laugh with delight when the demi-god Maui (voiced by the always welcome Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) begins to sing.
What I like about Moana is that it isn’t set in the modern day world, has beautiful soaring musical numbers that make me smile even when I think about them now. You really need to watch out for the Maui number. Thank me later, you’re welcome (see what I did there?).
One issue certain persons had with another animation that came out last year (Kubo and the Two Strings) was that things seemed to occur out of necessity and happened just because. While I didn’t feel that made it any less good, I can understand the feeling of a story being rushed.
There’s none of that in Moana. It progresses at a believable pace and while it may be argued that it would be almost impossible for a lone girl to be able to traverse the oceans unaided, lets not forget that she has an ally in the ocean which makes that bit all the more believable.
In the end Moana is a beautiful story that gives inspiration to both males and females alike; that we shouldn’t be afraid to test our boundaries, that we shouldn’t stop being curious for only then can we truly test our limits and know what we are truly capable of while discovering who we really are.
Honorary mention to Moana’s pet rooster HeiHei (Alan Tudyk). If you haven’t yet seen Moana, you just have to in order to get why this character is super hilarious.
