You know what’s interesting about Disney’s past few movies? They can get away with taking an “original” property, warping the story structure to conform to the structure that all Disney projects must conform to, and then release this new less original, barely standing skeleton, and still pull off making an at least ok movie out of it. Moana is a example of this, just as Zootopia was earlier, but it’s also an example of why this doesn’t actually work if you don’t bring enough of your own stuff to the movie. Sure, Zootopia was effectively Chinatown for kids and about racism, but it had a living breathing world to fall back on. Moana doesn’t really have that, no matter how much perfection is to be found in the animation and the songs. If you’re wondering what movie Moana is taking its bones from, that would be Mad Max: Fury Road. There’s much worse films to steal from, but what made that movie work so well was it was saying something interesting, as well as just being a kickass action movie. Moana is actually kind of a kickass action movie at times (seriously, you wait until the Kakamora show up), since it is effectively Mad Max: Disney Road, but instead of a potent message about the fall of humanity at the hands of the patriarchy Moana has, trust in yourself and you’ll find power. One of those is fresh and other is contrived, and as far as I can understand that’s the reason why Moana doesn’t ever really get going no matter how hard it tries. And boy does it. For all the disheartening stuff that has just been said about Moana, this movie has some master animation. The character models are striking, with the titular character, and Dwayne Johnson’s Maui really sticking out as versatile characters. The songs are also really new this time, even if plot wise they are treading the normal ground. The infusion of more oceanic motifs to the music and some bolstering by Hamilton scribe Lin-Manuel Miranda, allow the score to take on the beautiful chants of the former and the pitch perfect rhythm of the latter. Voice actress Auli’i Cravalho has a very expressive voice as Moana and shines in "How Far I’ll Go", a song that holds familiar themes to other heroine songs, but is a highlight of the film. Hamilton’s Christopher Johnson also leads a catchy exposition song near the beginning that starts everything off with a bang. The vibrant colors of each character and the calming blues of the ocean are suitably distracting, but sadly it can’t get past the fact that what’s going on seems so overdone. The animation and music quality is enough to call this at least a good movie, but I’m still disappointed with this familiar film. What’s Disney going to follow up with next? Dead Ringers? I sure hope so. I give Moana a 6.5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |