Critique: Moana (Film) 2/2

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Songs

 

These songs were simply stunning. They were beautiful to which to listen. They are clever and deep, giving the audience something to chew on. They present a character’s true nature and desires so that the plot is free for actions and humour. (The best example of this is Maui’s ‘You’re Welcome’ song perfectly demonstrates his egotistical nature.)

 

Quite often when a song was refrained, it morphed into a refrain of a different song. The music of these combinations flowed well, rather than being choppy like other musicals that refrain several songs in one track.

However, when listening to the song list independent of the film, the songs do feel repetitive because their backing tracks are so similar that they’re interchangeable. So it makes you feel like you’re listening to the same song multiple times. Yet when just listening to the track list during the film, the songs are interspaced with plot which breaks the repetitive feeling.

A musical’s track list is designed mainly to be played with the film rather than without it. Thus how songs feel during the movie is much more important than how the songs feel without the movie.

My favourite example comes after Maui leaves. Moana’s grandmother Tala comes to comfort her. She sings a short part of ‘Where You Are’ which morphs into a bit of ‘You Know the Way’. This combo was done beautifully.

 

‘Where You Are’

This song uses homonyms often to great effect, such as ‘The fishermen come back from the sea. I wanna see’ and ‘coconut leaves… no-one leaves’. Another example is ‘everyone has a roll on this island so maybe I can roll with mine’.

This song is about finding happiness where you are, which is a good thing because the attitude of ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ can be damaging. But Moana finds this constricting. Not only is the theme conflated with Moana running off to sea all the time, but the line ‘Every path leads back to where you are’ puts a finality on Moana experiencing what she wants.

Throughout the song, Moana does become more involved with the island. Finding happiness where you are doesn’t have to come at the expense of wanting to experience and explore more.

 

‘I Know Who You Are’

This one is my absolute favourite. The notes and rhythms are perfect. Moana’s voice has a pacifying tone, something not easy to express whilst singing.

‘They have stolen the Heart from inside you, but that does not define you’ is clever because it’s saying Te Ka is not defined by someone else’s actions. This is an important message.

Then we have, “This is not who you are. You know who you are” which is good because it is saying people know who they are on the inside despite people’s perceptions. Just like Moana always knew who she was despite the restrictions put on her by her father Tui.

 

 

Animation

 

The animation is fantastic.

When the sea parts, allowing Moana to walk along the sea bed, she can see the sea life all around her, perfectly animating the way light refracts in water and thus changing how it appears. The way the toddlers were animated to toddle was very realistic. One kid does a dance and it’s the exact same sequence the lead monkey does from the Dreamworks film ‘Rio’.

We see a bunch of ancestors to the people of Motunui. Each person was different yet it was quite clear they were related to the modern population. Beautifully done.

When the demigod Maui transforms into his various animal shapes, all look very similar to his human form. This means that, no matter which form he takes, Maui is always recognisable. The best example of this is his iguana form: the head especially couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.

 

 

Problems

 

Whilst the songs and the humour were well thought out, the makers didn’t think of the consequences of a lot of their decisions. Sometimes they were just odd, like how Maui pronounces sea as ‘zee’ in the ‘You’re Welcome’ song.

 

Some things make no sense.

A kokamori steals Hei-Hei because the rooster swallowed the Heart. It then goes back to its ships and holds Hei-Hei up like a trophy, prompting all the kokamori to cheer. Considering the Heart is tiny and the kokamori were far away from Hei-Hei when the Heart was swallowed, there’s absolutely no way they could know the Heart was inside Hei-Hei.

Maui says he has no magical powers because he doesn’t have his Hook. However, he was trapped on that island for a thousand years. Considering that’s far beyond a normal lifespan, he clearly had some power.

Moana repeats, “I am Moana and you will board my boat and restore the Heart of Te Fiti” too much. It gets tiresome. When it changes to “I am Moana, I am aboard my boat and I will restore the Heart” this is very impactful. However, it would have been just as impactful even if the original speech was only given twice.

Maui wonders why it chose to give Moana the Heart, wonders why the ocean didn’t put the Heart back itself, and wonders why it didn’t give Maui his Hook. These are all valid questions that never get answered. These are the type of questions audience members have after films, so to have this acknowledged in the film is clever. Yet raising questions that don’t get answered is a bad choice.

Te Ka cracks Maui’s Hook so he flees, telling Moana that the ocean chose wrong. This makes Moana completely lose confidence in herself. I don’t buy this. She’s shown utter confidence throughout without even a hint of self-doubt. Yes, Maui might have left, but there’s no way this would rip all her confidence away.

 

Maui says he gets his tattoos when he earns them.

Yet he has a tattoo of being defeated by Te Ka. Things are earned when you are successful, and being defeated clearly isn’t successful. Unless it was the motivation behind it: Maui stole the Heart to give humans the power of creation.

Also, Maui has a tattoo of his birth parents throwing him into the sea. He was a baby so he clearly didn’t earn that!

 

The cockerel Hei-Hei is mentally challenged, being unfairly used as comic relief. (Just like the seal in Finding Dory.) The animators wanted to portray these characters as stupid but there are plenty of ways to animate ‘stupid’ instead of ‘disabled’. Not only that but it creates an unjust, false link between disability and a lack of intelligence. How did discriminating against a vulnerable group pass inspection? This is highly disappointing.

 

 

 

Overall, this is a really satisfying film. The songs and animations were beautiful. Every aspect of the film was filled with cleverness easy to appreciate. The humour was constant but didn’t override the plot. Yes, there are problems (some of them quite serious). No, this doesn’t detract too much from the film: it is still intensely enjoyable.