Moana Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Moana

Moana is the latest film from Disney animation, the same studio that brought us Big Hero 6, Frozen, and Zootopia from earlier this year. The film follows the titular hero Moana, an adventurer of sorts who sets out across the sea for a fabled island, as well as try to find the legendary demi-god Maui. Now before I get going with my review, I want to clear the air. As anyone who's read my reviews for animated films, I'm an animation buff. I have enormous amounts of respect and admiration of animators, so I love animated films. And specifically my favorite kind is Disneys animated musical films, so going into this film I may have a bit of a bias, but I can't say I tried to stop myself from having it.

First off, as I said, I'm an animation buff, so the animation of Moana was one of the key features I was looking forward to seeing. And I gotta say, this film has some of the most vividly gorgeous animation I've seen in a Disney movie since my personal favorite film of theirs, Mulan. Not only are the characters movements fluid and full of life, but the amount of detail put into the characters and the world around them is simply astonishing. The water animation in this movie is some of the best water animation I have ever seen in a movie in my entire life, and it beautifully compliments the vivid color palette and colour scheme of this movie. Much like Mad Max: Fury Road (this might be the only time I'll ever compare a Mad Max movie to a Disney Movie), the colours in this movie are vivid and beautiful, they're emphasized to their fullest potential, and it amounts to the film overall looking gorgeous. 

The sound work in this movie is also pretty universally impressive. The voice acting was fantastic, Auli'i Cravalho showed remarkable talent in the lead role of this movie, and for a first time role it's more than impressive to have this much emotional range and vocal range in one movie. Dwayne Johnson was also pretty great as Maui, he's essentially perfectly cast for the particular role. As far as the music goes, the songs in this movie are pretty great. Like any good Disney movie they're all pretty memorable in their own way and showcase different types of music, they're all catchy, and of course there's always that one that you feel the need to listen to immediately after watching the movie.

As far as the writing for Moana goes, it's honestly really refreshing even if it's familiar. It doesn't feel a lot like most recent Disney films, it feels way more like classic Disney than something like Tangled or Frozen. The humor especially, there's one character in the film which is essentially Mauis magic tattoos that have their own personality, it was very reminiscent of Peter Pans shadow, or the magic carpet from Aladdin, a silent comic relief character with simple yet sometimes very clever visual based humor. That's not to say the dialogue isn't great, because it is. The back and forth between Moana and Maui is really well done, they play off each other really well, and there's an arc between the way they interact that was really enjoyable. 

Final Rating

Moana is another really outstanding movie of 2016, this is another one I have to say is worth watching for just about anyone and everyone. If there was a really easy way to describe Moana to Disney fans, it'd be that it's like elements of Mulan mixed with elements of Aladdin. And seeing as how Mulan and Aladdin are my two favorite Disney movies, Moana is of course right up there as one of my favorite Disney films, and to me it's one of the best movies of 2016.