Over Thanksgiving break I was able to see Disney’s latest film, Moana. Moana follows a strong female lead on her adventure to save her island. Along the way, she meets a demigod named Maui, tiny coconut villains, a strange crab obsessed with all things shiny, and an evil lava monster. Right away, I fell in love with the world of Moana. Every little detail from the trees to the beautiful ocean is amazingly crafted. I applaud the animation team for their hard work. The ocean was probably my favorite visual aspect of the movie. At times, I forgot I was watching an animated film whenever the movie showed a landscape shot because it looked so vivid and real.

(Photo credit: Disney)

As for the characters, I absolutely adored Moana. Moana is a free spirit with a great sense of adventure and she has an incredibly big heart. She’s stubborn enough to not let people trample all over her, but open minded enough to take the villagers needs into consideration.  Auli’i Cravalho did an amazing job bringing Moana to life and I was astounded by the beauty of her voice. As for Maui, I actually found there to be two differing opinions on the character. You either hated him or you loved him. I personally grew to love Maui as the film progressed, but I could certainly see why some would dislike him. At first, Maui comes off as an arrogant idiot and originally annoyed me to no end. However, I love The Rock and once I got a little bit of backstory on Maui I was able to enjoy the character. I think Hei Hei (the chicken) really stole the show. Hei Hei was a lovable chicken who always found himself in trouble. However, this little chicken proved to be very helpful near the end of the film and proved himself to be an asset to Moana and Maui. The music in the film blew me away. Lin Manuel Miranda proved his genius yet again in this film and I had the Moana soundtrack stuck in my head for days on end. My personal favorite was sung by Auli’i Cravalho, How Far I’ll Go, and I’m sure it will be a catchy anthem for years to come.

(Photo credit: Disney)

As much as I loved this movie, every film does not come without faults. I was actually a little disappointed the movie did not blow me away, but that’s because the movie had been so hyped up, I had extremely high expectations. I actually found this children’s movie to be rather, well, childish. Usually every Disney movie comes with at least something a little dark to scare the kids and even the adults, but Moana didn’t really have any dark undertones. There have been many Disney movies where the villain actually wants the blood of the main characters. Take Tangled for example. In Tangled, Mother Gothel actually stabbed Eugene and intended to let him bleed out. Mother Gothel’s death scene was actually pretty gruesome as well. In Moana, even the comedy leaned more towards potty humor. I actually really enjoy looking back on old Disney films and laughing at the hidden adult humor, but there was none of that in Moana. Maybe I’ve grown out of Disney, but I doubt that considering I’ve loved recent Disney animated films even in my teen years. I also found the message of the film to be a little repetitive. They really hammer the idea that the movie is about finding yourself pretty hard. After a while, I get it. “Who are you?” “I am Moana!” Yeah I got that. Also, WHERE WAS THE PIG? The pig was in all the posters and I thought it was gonna be in the movie for a majority of the scenes, but it was left out. I can’t be too critical though considering the intended audience. However, I don’t think Moana is up to par with previous Disney films. For these reasons, I give Moana a 7/10 stars. It was a fun adventure, but nothing deeper than that. I still highly encourage everyone to go out to the theatre to see it, especially with kids. That’s my opinion and feel free to comment down below your own thoughts and feelings. Thanks for reading!