Review of Moana (2016) by Pipec — 18 Dec 2016

A Seesaw of Dissimilar Components.

"Moana" is the 56th Disney animated feature film after "Zootopia", at the beginning of the year. Directed with atticism, harmony and deep deferences by the Polynesian culture by seasoned pair-director John Musker and Ron Clements, the newest treasure of the factory follows Moana (Auli'i Cravalho), a brave young falling in love with wonders in the ocean. She lives accompanied by her sensitive mother Sina (Nicole Scherzinger), her over-protective father Tui (Temuera Morrison) and her former navigator tribe in the radiant island of Motunui—located in the most westerly place in Chile, in life real,— they have lodged there once a nautical misfortune caused absolute cease of their trips on the sea. However, Mother Nature seems to annihilate crops and imposing beauties in which they live, by which, Moana is driven to set sail in search of Maui ("The Rock")—the demigod who stole the precious stone from the heart of nature,— for giving back the beautiful gem to its home, causing the growth of needy groceries and nature. As is recurrent in the films of the study, Clements and Musker's road movie/ buddy movie will place the duo protagonist in more than one risky and brilliant adventure, forging naturally a spontaneous and classic friendship. What most stands out here is that we don't have a "Princess" itself—even so she proceed from powerful parents,—we don't have a woman of small waist, albino skin, silky hair, there is also no stepmothers or perfidious witches, there are no enchanted castles; however, the best is there's no love interest, quite the contrary, we have an essential story of female emancipation, maturity, and fellowship.

Like the best Disney movies, "Moana" is electrifying in its traditionalism. From the first moment to the last, the film is a profusion of vividness, verism, and buoyant pictures, reaching optic magnetism that got "Finding Nemo" and "The Good Dinosaur". The textures, looks, styles, volumes and dimensions of each well-prepared features are the real links allowing to bring the story with raging incentive from adult or child audience. Ocean's life—the water is one of the characters more complicated of conceiving in computer-animated fantasy films,—marine flora and fauna—although they are not too visible, What we watched is impressive,— greenish environment of the island, the crafted visuals to Polynesian culture, Moana's curls, Maui's tattoos, everything, everything absolutely has a beautiful extravagance visual. If it were for its realistic images, this would be an instant masterpiece.

The Achilles' heel comes from its screenplay written by the vast crew members (8 screenwriters). Because, the story has been related incessantly in previous animated projects; this time, it is the same essence merged into radiant pictures and even though she is the most distant in princess movies, it does not save to feel repetitive. Throughout the feature film, the effort—and the lassitude—is remarkable since they wished to have original and entertaining situations, such as the descent into the monsters world, nevertheless, trivialities of the genre are palpable. Rather than palpable are its grueling references—no, we are not talking about the 'easter eggs', and by the way, I only caught one: Sven from "Frozen",—the selfsame directors confessed using even some of the material from their prior works. References from the apocalyptic "Mad Max" by George Miller to the vibrant "Mulan" by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook.

This is the best original motion picture soundtrack of Disney in years. Which is led by American actor and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has monopolized lately the public points of attraction starring and creating in the Broadway musicals "In the Heights" and "Hamilton"—especially by this last one. Although, many English-speaking viewers attended to movie theaters for seeing "Moana" for two reasons primarily—leaving most important aspects aside—: the first one, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who lends his voice to Maui and the second one, by acclaimed Miranda's compositions. It would not be a surprise to see coming nominations at full speed for such great achievement, simply beautiful.

"Moana" from Disney is a delightful journey to open ocean, it is inquisitively a rigorous work. Our aural and optical receivers will experience an unimaginable wonders feast, nonetheless, its narrative and treatment are not at the same level than artistic area. There is no doubt that kids and adult going to enjoy the adventures of the new and less conventional Disney princess, and although the factory is trying to break slowly modern community's unshakable taboos, there's still a long way to go. Disney, thanks for providing pure films, however, they can always be improved further, and they have extravagant opportunities here.