There is a little bit of magic in Disney films of a certain stripe, when the music swells and the counterpoint kicks in and the protagonist hears the call to adventure and your cold, icy heart can’t help but melt just a little as you feel the hero’s same pull toward the horizon and mix of excitement and trepidation over the sheer possibilities. Moana is filled to the brim with these moments, the kind that make the most of the hero’s journey the films sets its eponymous protagonist on. And it capitalizes on Moana’s unique combination of self-confidence, internal conflict, and gnawing uncertainty, that give her layers and make her a compelling figure.
But if, like me, you’ve been watching that same strain of Disney films since you were barely able to hum along to the music, then this formula — even a particularly entertaining version of it — can’t have the same impact that it once did. Moana is cheery, exciting, and fun from start to finish, but it doesn’t break much new ground among its mouse-eared brethren. And while its rendition of the form is quite good, it’s not quite good enough to fully transcend it.
The best elements of the film are its music and its visuals. Moana can boast the best set of Disney tunes on the big screen since the studio’s Renaissance era. The team of Opetaia Foa’i, Mark Mancina, and Lin-Manuel Miranda combine to craft a series of consistently amusing, oft-stirring, and always head-bob-worthy songs that carry the film forward. From the moving chorus and counterpoint of “Where You Are” and “How Far I’ll Go”, remixed and revisited throughout the film, to the clever humor and wordplay of “Shiny”, which recalls the best of Disney’s character songs, the soundtrack alone is reason to cue this film up and stick with it through the end credits.
The same’s true for Moana’s visuals. The film captures the Polynesian island aesthetic in a way that simultaneously manages to convey the natural beauty of the tropical setting with an almost endless splendor, and also to expand it into the realm of the mystical and supernatural in a way that feels like a natural extension of that aesthetic instead of a betrayal of it. The film is water-adjacent for the vast majority of its runtime, and uses the movement of the seas, the canopy of sky and stars overhead, and the colorful, kinetic obstacles the world throws at its heroes in between, to create a movie that could survive on its visuals alone even without its stellar soundtrack.
Oh sure, it's cool for Moana, but when I try to high five the water, I'm "disturbing the other guests at the restaurant" and "need to get out of the fountain."
That visual creativity extends beyond the setting and cinematography. Moana features a pair of wordless characters who nonetheless each sport personality and an important part to play within the narrative. The film uses the living tattoos of Maui, a braggadocios demigod, as the character’s conscience. Creating a sense of motion, magic, and the pull of duty and sympathy through the gestures and nudges of Maoi’s miniature ink equivalent is no small feat, and it’s done in new and inventive ways each time.
By the same token, Moana makes the ocean itself a character, and not just in the cheesy, “the city is really a character in my novel” sort of way. With an approach that recalls the magic carpet from Aladdin, the ocean that surrounds Moana at all times is a legitimate presence and persona in the movie, one that can seem playful, rueful, encouraging, or majestic with how it bobs up and splashes back. The animation team manages to make an amorphous blob of water feel like a friend and a spiritual avatar, which is itself a unique achievement.
What holds Moana back is the way the film comes off like a mix-and-match of elements from other films in the Disney canon. Moana’s self-proclaimed crazy lady of a grandmother is one of the most enjoyable parts of the film, but her comings and goings feel like combination of similar characters in Pocahontas and The Lion King (and tend to happen at all-too-convenient times). The story beats, while nicely molded to fit the setting and needs of this particular tale, will be familiar to anyone who’s seen a good sampling of the studio’s prior films. And the main characters’ crestfallen lows, soaring highs, and goofy middles are well done, but can’t help but feel like the latest flavor of Disney’s longstanding theme and variation.
That said, Moana can boast a few things in its favor that help distinguish it and make it worthwhile independent of the company it keeps. First, the film dispenses with any love story. While there’s hints of flirtation and playfulness between the protagonist and Maui, the movie is firmly about Moana figuring out who she is, what she’s made of, and how best to lead her people, while caught between the importance of tradition and the pull of the great unknown. That’s more than enough to sustain a story like this one, and thankfully Moana doesn’t try to shoehorn in a standard Disney romance where it’s not needed.
"Que que na-to-ra. You will understand."
Second, the film is well-aware of the tropes it’s playing with. Maui has a quick but amusing explanation for why Moana is a standard issue Disney princess, a dismissal he issues over her protests and an archetype the film both leans into and subverts. He, and the film as a whole, also pokes fun and plays with her designation as The Chosen One. The hero’s journey that Moana embarks on isn’t all that novel, but the movie has the good sense to wink at its conventions without winking too hard at the audience, a tack that takes the edge off.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Moana is simply charming. Some of that charm can come off a bit empty if you think too hard or too long about it. But through a combination of the fun banter between Moana and Maui, the cast of silly and heartwarming supporting characters, and the way the spirit of Polynesian traditions and culture are embraced and reflected, the elements come together into a rousing good time and an engaging film, even when Moana is employing a familiar playbook.
That’s the trick of the ur-Disney film. There’s a certain formula at play that’s updated and refreshed for each new generation, but which remains recognizable and a little less revelatory to the old guard that still sweeps into the theater. But somewhere in the midst of the update — of the endearing, silly figures that populate the film, the splashy visuals that make you want to visit Motunui, and the songs that will be stuck in your head for days to come — the magic happens, and you stop caring about the fact that you’ve kinda sorta seen it all before, and can’t help but enjoy the moment.
