Moana continues Disney’s winning streak outside of the Pixar brand by producing one of the most beautifully breathtaking animated movies of the year and I dare say of recent years.
Dwayne Johnson provides the voice for Maui, a demigod living in the Pacific who is also a shape shifter. He stole a magical stone that helped create life and now has one of his most precious gifts, a fishhook, lost from him.
A thousand years later on the same island, a young girl named Moana (Auli’i Cravahlo) finds the stone and insists that it could save her island from starvation and ultimately being perished. Her father tells her it’s nonsense, but her grandmother encourages her to return it to its rightful place.
Moana needs Maui’s help, but he initially refuses. Once she agrees to get his fishhook back, they team up to return the stone.
The movie is loaded with some exquisite animation and it really looks original both in terms of its vision and execution. Certain images alone are worth even seeing it in IMAX 3D. There really hasn’t been an animated movie with this much originality to its look since The Lion King or Finding Nemo. A sequence involving a moving island alone is enough to inspire jaws to drop.
The voicework is not only great; it’s terrific especially hearing the Pacific Islanders speaking in their native tongue. There’s such beauty, clarity, and simplicity.
This is not a one-note animated movie with gorgeous visuals. It is very much a story with characters we come to love and care about and it also sends a wonderfully evoking message regarding female empowerment. Moana is one of the year’s best films.
Grade: A
(Rated PG for peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements.)
