Moana (2016)

The Disney formula of a girl experiencing the call to adventure is usually made more interesting by a twist on the basic premise. In Mulan, Fa Mulan has to pretend to be a boy. In Tangled, Rapunzel shares protagonist duties with Flynn; in Frozen, Anna and Elsa share protagonist duties, and one has to rescue the other after she isolates herself for being too dangerous (and almost becomes the film’s antagonist), while a character who seems like the love interest turns out to be the real antagonist, and the true love story is between two sisters. A similar villainous inversion features in Beauty and the Beast, where Beast is set up as an antagonist and becomes the love interest, flipping the story from one of resistance in imprisonment to finding understanding beyond superficial barriers.

Where other Disney princess films have tried to liven up the rigid formula with twists and variations, Moana slavishly follows it to a T, presumably hoping its colourful setting will compensate for its total lack of creativity. The film is predictable from beginning to end, far more so than even other Disney princess features – it doesn’t even attempt to vary the little things. Its largest departure from the predictable is an absence – unlike previous pets/mascots which usually had some kind of personality, Moana’s pet is a chicken who is so stupid it can’t even be trusted to eat food or stay away from the ocean, constantly trying to peck at and swallow stones or walking off cliffs. Its total lack of a brain is the joke. The laziness of this detail sums up the film in microcosm.

Moana herself is charming, in a prefabricated sort of way. She is introduced as capable and determined, having already become accomplished enough to be considered a chief of the tribe at 16. While more sensible films would leave some room for development or at least introduce a flaw, Moana is perfect from the start. She just doesn’t know how to sail, and she learns that over five minutes’ screen time. It’s a testament to Auli'i Cravalho’s performance as well as proof of how starved we are for capable, independent female protagonists that she remains likeable despite being utterly-middle-of-the-road: nice enough, brave enough, kind enough, smart enough. If you mapped her traits onto a polygon of numbered lines, like an RPG character, she’d be a perfect circle: totally capable and not at all interesting.

Although Dwayne Johnson can usually be counted on for outsize charisma, his egomaniac demi-god Maui is a mixed bag, owing to the inconsistent characterisation of a script which can’t decide whether he’s an amoral antihero who’ll use Moana as monster-bait to get back his magical fishhook, or a rogue with a heart of gold who’ll go along with her on her prospective suicide mission and even teach her to sail. Adding to the way he bounces between the two extremes is a perfunctory attempt at deepening his characterisation with the sombre revelation that he was abandoned by his parents – despite being the sort of devastating fact that would require years of therapy to work through, the depression Maui falls into is cured by a spirited pep talk from Moana.

This refusal to seriously deal with anything that might be remotely negative or involve conflict is typical of Moana, which is written to have as many triumphant shots of Moana sailing forward with joyous music playing is possible, and to minimise any sign that she might have flaws or weaknesses. Once Maui obligatorily storms off and leaves Moana hopeless, and she experiences her dark night of the soul and doubts her ability to be the Chosen One and save the world, her heroic resolve is found and reaffirmed within two minutes. At a pivotal early moment in the film, a beloved family member dies, and as her spirit moves through the sea to lift Moana’s boat, not a single moment is spared on tears or a recognition of the fact that Moana’s loved one is dead: we transition instantly to the same Polynesian choir harmonies and dramatic shots of Moana sailing to her uninteresting destiny. Consider how Frozen could spend multiple songs on the conflict between Anna and Elsa; consider that “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” is a whole song dedicated to their separation and loneliness. How much more emotionally earned and heartfelt is the triumphant climax for this time spent on establishing the sadness and the heartbreak? But Moana doesn’t want to do the work. The climax is presented as a meaningful moment, as if it's bring some theme to fruition about "remembering who you are" and love conquering hate and heartlessness, but the script never lays the groundwork to develop any of those themes, so it just comes off as weird and incongruous.

Lin Manuel-Miranda, evidently exhausted from Hamilton, produces an uninspiring soundtrack whose sole highlight is thankfully also the main theme, Moana’s “How Far I’ll Go” – the rest is unfunny riffs on demigod sidekick Maui’s egomania (“You’re Welcome”) that will make you nostalgic for “Gaston”, the ridiculous novelty character spotlight song “Shiny”, and admittedly-decent Polynesian vocal harmonies for the ancestral song, “We Know the Way”.

While the script may be lazy and uninspiring, and the music little better, half of Moana’s crew have clearly put in the work – the animators. Full of gorgeously detailed and beautifully-rendered undersea locations, storms, lava-monster battles, and verdant islands, Moana is a visual delight. Since acquiring Pixar, Disney can count on always impressing the viewer with the look of the film – an ideal marriage of the two companies can produce something heartfelt, with universal archetypes used in the service of a personal and moving story, like Frozen. When one half of the team slacks off, you wind up with the gorgeous-but-empty Moana.