A Disney animated musical is always a comforting and welcome presence, and Moana, put together by the directors who brought us previous Disney animated musical classics like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, carries on the tradition proudly only now using CG animation to tell its coming of age story. All of the elements familiar to Disney animated musicals are here: a plucky main character, a somewhat wisecracking sidekick, an oddball supporting character, and enough song and dance and spectacle to satisfy the most demanding audience, but even with that sense of familiarity that co-exists with the unique locations and centuries old characters, it’s a very enjoyable enterprise.
Despite her chieftain father’s (Temuera Morrison) insistence that his daughter Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) learn to be satisfied with life on their island Motunui (even though there are definite signs of its extinction approaching), she responds greatly to the call of the sea, and spurred on by her loving grandmother Tala (Rachel House), Moana sets off to return the sacred heart of Te Fiti (an emerald-like gem) to its owner by locating the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and gaining his help in her mission. The journey is a dangerous one, and the duo knows waiting for them at the end of the line is the ferocious lava monster Te Ka who will oppose all efforts to get past her to find Te Fiti.
A number of hands crafted the story for this venture: directors Ron Clements and John Musker along with Chris Williams and Don Hall, Pamela Ribon, Aaron Kandell and Jordan Kandell with the final screenplay being penned by Jared Bush. Despite the numerous cooks in the kitchen, there’s a seamless quality about the story with its quest narrative highlighted by multiple dangers which the duo must face that allows musicians Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina, and Opetaia Foa’I to weave their songs into the story so that they flow quite naturally into the narrative. We have the opening number “Where You Are” that gives us background on island life as we watch Moana grow from childhood (voiced by Louise Bush) to teenaged adolescence, Moana’s Oscar-nominated “want” song “How Far I’ll Go,” Maui’s ego-pumping paean to his greatness “You’re Welcome,” and even a classic Disney villain’s song: here it’s “Shiny” warbled by a vicious giant crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement). Familiarly, the songs are surrounded with wonderful production values that feature authentic native dancing and scores of islanders participating in the big group numbers like “Where You Are” and the saga of their voyager days “We Know the Way.” The animation also sets the bar once again impossibly high for future animators with CG photorealistic water and the flowing hair of the natives, both impossibly difficult achievements which the artists make look so easy and Maui’s movable 2D animated tattoos (a story unto themselves with the mini-Maui character who serves as the demigod’s hilarious conscience) which offers the mind-blowing combination of traditional animation (also seen in the movie’s prelude) with more modern computer generated illustration.
And the cast is sublime. Teenager Auli’i Cravalho is a revelation as Moana with firm acting skills and a dynamite singing voice that really displays many emotional colors so rare in someone so young. Dwayne Johnson is certainly in his element as the demigod Maui. You’ll be impressed by his singing, and the wisecracking ease with which he delivers his lines is no surprise given his large body (no pun intended) of film work. Rachel House makes an affecting grandmother, and as Moana’s parents, both Temuera Morrison and Nicole Scherzinger are excellent. Alan Tudyk gets to do the squawks and gurgles of adorably oddball chicken cohort Heihei while Jemaine Clement as the confident crabby crab Tamatoa dominates his tension-filled sequence.