Moana

So I grew up with Disney movies. I grew up right in the middle of the Disney Renaissance and so like many kids, Disney movies were quintessential parts of my experience growing up. To add onto it, I grew up with 3 sisters so EVERY Disney movie was watched multiple times, especially the Disney classics with the Princesses and everything. The interesting part is that growing up in the Disney Renaissance ultimately led to growing out of the kids movies while seeing the end of the renaissance, the shift of popularity to Pixar films, and the surge of films that just didn't do as well for Disney as they're past films had. Now I haven't seen a lot of those films that happened after the Renaissance. The last Disney movie that I remember really looking forward to back in the day was Treasure Planet. I don't know, maybe Chicken Little was a great film, but you could definitely see the tone of both Disney and Pixar films change from just kids films to films pointed towards both kids AND adults.

And that makes sense, there was a group of people that grew up just like me and made Disney a boat load of money. Those people eventually grow up and after a while, they start having kids but still enjoy those same movies they grew up on just as much as they used to. This is how you get great films like Inside Out that have tone and themes that are often directed more at adults than kids. I don't mean to say that Moana has a similar tone to Inside Out, but I make this observation because I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Disney Executives in business now as they start cranking out brilliant movies like Frozen, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and of course Moana, revitalizing the animation department of Disney and almost starting a new renaissance.

Moana centers on the titular character (voiced by Auli'i Cravahlo). She is the daughter of the chief of a village on a small Polynesian island called Motunui. As the daughter of the chief, eventually she will become the leader of the village and she is groomed from a very young age to take over and lead her people. However, Moana has a deep seeded desire to leave her island and explore the ocean, something her father (voiced by Jango Fett, Temuera Morrison) has expressly forbidden due to the dangers that lie beyond their borders.

Right off the bat, there's a lot of tropes Moana is taking from a lot of their previous films in this set up. You've got a little bit of The Little Mermaid, you've got a little bit of Hercules in there as well as Mulan. When Maui we get a little bit of Aladdin. There's a lot of familiar ideas that happen in the first half hour of this movie and while it's familiar, it never feels manufactured or inauthentic. Sure, there are a couple songs that I think this movie wanted to blast off the way Let It Go did for Frozen, but in that desire, they crank out some really great music, a lot of which I think is actually a lot better than Frozen. Believe me, I will talk about the music, but what I'm getting at is that the beginning set up the characters so well that I almost was bummed when some of the character didn't really make an appearance for the rest of the film. Her life on the island gave the character of Moana such a rich backstory that I wanted to see more. I kind of hope that's a sequel cause those characters were so good.

But anyways, back to the plot. Everything is great to start off and Moana is about to take her place as Chief, but then there are some troubles that come to her island and the survivability of her tribe is in question. Moana believes that the solution is beyond the borders and she is eventually tasked by her grandmother to go on this quest to find the demi-god Maui and force him to return something he stole from a god.

Here's what kind of blew me away about this movie. I would have been totally satisfied if it had just been about this girl going on an adventure by herself and maybe her sidekick chicken. I actually don't feel like this movie absolutely needed to have Maui in the story to be good. The backstory of Moana was so strong that I was invested in her goals and her adventure and it really could have been her going on a Legend of Zelda Windwaker adventure alone and I would have been happy. The beginning of the movie is able to portray her as a kind, strong woman who you immediately really enjoy even before she sings her song that was trying to be a crossover between Frozen's "Let It Go" and Hercules "I Can Go The Distance"

The pop version of that song is just terrible...

But as I've discovered by looking into this movie and it's development, Disney wanted to make an animated movie with the voice of one of the most popular celebrities of today in it: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

And honestly I don't blame them. Cracked did a video on 3 Scientific Reasons Everyone Loves The Rock and you can watch that and try and understand the connection between The Rock and social media and why you love him because of that. Or you can just look back at the films he's done and realize that if a studio wants to make a crap ton of money, putting Dwayne Johnson in it is a pretty good way of doing that. The Fast and the Furious franchise was saved by him. They tried to save GI Joe with him. He is one of the biggest names in Hollywood right now and he could very well be our President one day.

And let's be honest, he's a former WWE wrestler. He's definitely not going to go down as one of the best actors of all time because of his ability to act out Shakespeare. And it's obvious from this movie that he also cannot sing very well. But none of that really seems to matter when you have the charisma this guy has and is able to convey, even in animated form.

Maui (voiced by Johnson) is not the best character in the movie (that goes to Moana) but he is a fun character regardless. You can guess from the fact that he's a demi-god that he's a little bit of an asshole and he is very self centered. The first song he sings is a song called, "Your Welcome", where he talks about all the great things he has done.

Funny story about that song, that was actually the song that got me interested in seeing this movie. While The Rock doesn't exactly sing very well, he exudes a lot of charisma in the song and it's just entertaining regardless. However, when I watched the movie, I figured out that that's barely the 3rd or 4th best song behind some of the other great music in this movie. But I will talk about that when I finish the plot.

But Maui is a layered character and he has a lot of backstory too that just makes him a compelling character as well.

Moana finds Maui and they go on this adventure together. And there's a giant crab, and sailing, and it's just a lot of fun.

I mentioned Legend of Zelda Windwaker before. I don't know how many of you played that game back in the Gamecube days, but this movie reminded me of that. Just a fun adventure with a lot of fascinating mythology to back up the adventure. There's magic, there's compelling characters, there's great action, and overall it just feels like an adventure film, something that you don't see very often. Sure you see a lot of action films, you see a lot of superhero films, but Moana brings a sense of adventure that you really only see every once in a while in movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Lord of the Rings. It is really hard to knock down and Moana does it really well. You've got great characters, a great set up, a great goal, and on top of all of that you've got a great soundtrack to go along with it.

And the soundtrack really is a supporting character in this movie. And a lot of the credit belongs to Mark Mancina, and Opetaia Foa'i. I think some people overlook those two's contribution. Mark Mancina is the composer for music from The Lion King and Tarzan along with a lot of other soundtracks from big films. And while I don't know a lot about Opetaia Foa'i, I know a lot of the Polynesian inspiration probably comes from his contribution. This movie has made me look into his music group Te Vaka and it's definitely worth checking out.

But the real person people gush over when it comes to this soundtrack is Lin-Manuel Miranda.

If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who created the hit musical Hamilton, the musical EVERYONE was listening to in 2016. Hamilton was such a big hit and I know this because I had a couple months in 2016 where Hamilton was all I listened to.

Here's my beef with Lin-Manuel Miranda though. He is so passionate about his work and he is so musical theater-y that it's almost annoying and it comes off as pretentious. I don't want to attack the man personally but I started to see him everywhere and I think that combined with the fact that my roommates at the time were OBSESSED with him for the entire year, it made me think that the guys fame was fake and not genuine. While I started 2016 loving his work, by the end of the year I really wanted nothing to do with it and just wanted him to go away. And that's probably why I missed Moana when it came out at the end of last year.

But then I listened to "Your Welcome" and I could see all the Lin-Manuel Miranda-isms coming from that song but you also listen to the lyrics and his voice comes out through Dwayne Johnson. And then I realized that's the real talent of Miranda. In both Hamilton and Moana, his use of language and that language in the context of a song or a rap just makes you feel something.

This is one of my favorite songs in the movie and it's because not only is it a great combination of traditional Polynesian and English lyrics, but the lyrics written by Miranda are really powerful and tell a story without needing visuals.

And then I remembered what I really liked about Hamilton and that was Miranda's ability to tell a story through song alone.

I have never seen Hamilton on stage. I am like many people who cannot afford the tickets that went for about a gazillion dollars in 2016. But I did get the soundtrack very quickly when I realized that the soundtrack told the story so vividly that I almost didn't need to see it on stage, I knew exactly what happened and the play that played out in my mind was almost better than the stage version at times.

And that's what he does with Moana. Miranda is able to use the lyrics to tell so much about the characters and you learn so much within the first three songs on top of the great story telling.

Is Moana a perfect movie? No. (Have I ever answered that question with a yes?). I didn't talk about the visuals in the movie. For me, the visuals in this movie were a little bit of a mixed bag. Some of them were absolutely fantastic like the water animation. I don't think I've ever had a movie where I've been distracted just looking at the water animation. I watched Moana on a Friday night and the next day I rushed out to go to the beach and swim in the ocean because this movie made me crave that. But on the other side of things, I thought the animation of the people were kind of a mixed bag as well. Sometimes the characters looked great with great expressions, and other times they looked a little strange.

And speaking of strange things to look at, Maui is one of the issues of the movie. And I mean issue in the loosest ways possible because as I mentioned before, Maui is a great character in this film, I'm really glad he's in this film.

However, while they managed to knock out a really great story with Moana, I can't help but feel like Disney gave them a little bit of a mandate of make sure you get a lot of The Rock in this movie. Maybe I'm assuming a lot with the production of this film, but I feel like a lot of emphasis was put on Maui when the real strength of movie was actually Moana. Again, I don't want to complain too much because I felt like the relationship between the two was done really well and while I think Maui looks a little weird, that is a character you are going to remember for a long time.

In all honesty, I'm kind of reaching to mention things that weren't great about this film. My watching experience is still pretty fresh and I'm still listening to the soundtrack on repeat so my view of this movie might be a little biased right now, but I can't help but feel like Moana is a movie that really brought out the best of Disney.

And if you're sitting there reading this wondering why I'm not mentioning the fact that Moana is the first Polynesian Princess, or that she wasn't animated like the typical Disney princess with the perfect body, I don't want to say that's not important, because it is, but I really don't care about that that much.

Here's the reality. Moana is a great story. You can tack whatever importance to the fact that she's Polynesian or any other social justice cause you can find in this movie if you want, but those don't make a good story. Understanding source material and creating good stories make good stories.

If you need examples of people making movies just for the sake of appealing to a certain demographic or social cause, see movies like the new Ghostbusters, Catwoman, or Transformers Age of Extinction. They're not good movies, and it's cause they focused on appealing to demographics, whether it be women or Michael Bay fans and not on developing good stories.

Overall, Moana is a solid movie that combines a solid fable-like adventure with the heart and soul of the classic Disney movies of the Disney Renaissance. If you have kids, they will enjoy a lot. If you're like me and you grew up in the Disney Renaissance, you'll love this movie for a multitude of reasons, the story, the characters, the music, the visuals, whatever, Moana is definitely worth checking out.

But those are my thoughts on Moana. I personally think it's better than Frozen, but that's my opinion. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog as well as live tweets I do while watching movies occasionally.

I'll leave you with this. Not sure how long this video will stay up for copyright reasons, but if you haven't check out the soundtrack to Hamilton the musical (cause let's be honest, you're not gonna get tickets to it still for a while), I am in a place now where I can recommend it again to people. Here's the performance they did at the Tony's. Its a lot of fun. Enjoy!