Moana is one of my favourite Disney cartoons. I have a personal relationship with this movie because I saw it at a time in my life when I needed to get that push to heed the “call of the sea,” so to speak. In my eyes, this is really a perfect film. So it’s hard to imagine why they would want to do a live-action remake of an already perfect animated film, especially when that animated film is only ten years old and all the images you see from the trailer tell you that so much of what you are going to see is made from CGI. What’s live action about that?
Moana shares a lot of the same beats as the original film. Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) is the future chief of her village on the island of Motonui. Because of the antics of the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who took the heart of the island goddess Te Fiti to give to the people, a darkness has set forth on the land. And despite the order of the chief, Moana’s father, that no one sail into the ocean, Moana has learned of her people’s origins and heeds the call of adventure to find Maui, convince him to return the heart of Te Fiti, and banish the demon Te Ka, who has caused the darkness after Te Fiti went into hiding.
I found myself having a difficult time entering into this world because of how heavily animated the visuals are. The lighting is overdone, giving the film a very saturated color aesthetic, and many of the backdrops look like they were generated by CGI. It opens with a story of Maui taking the heart of Te Fiti and then shifts into the village of Motonui. We see a young Moana playing with the sea, but the sea plays back, and it’s obviously special effects; the disconnect between the two images seems to clash. Maybe due to the fact that the CGI effects aren’t as clean and seamless as we would want them to be, it means editor Melanie Ann Oliver is constantly cutting away, creating a frenetic energy that can often break a moment from its full effect. It does manage to hide the CGI from being so blatantly disturbing to see against the real people playing in a scene, but it never allows the scenes to linger and be fully absorbed.
This is an issue that sits with me throughout this film. When Moana finally goes on her journey, there are scenes where Laga’aia is on a boat and it looks like her whole backdrop is one green screen of an empty ocean. There’s a halo effect that usually happens when a bad green screen execution is mounted, and that’s what it looks like. If it’s not green screen, then the lighting and saturated colors make it look like it, so the film never feels grounded or real. Later on, when Moana and Maui finally meet, their bickering doesn’t translate well when played by actual people. Maui throws her off the boat several times and she’s rescued by the ocean, who has chosen her specifically for this mission. In the cartoon, it’s funny, because they are cartoon characters. When The Rock does it to Laga’aia, it looks misogynistic and cruel and mean.
Strangely enough, as I’m watching this film and really resisting it because of the way it looks, there is one song number that still manages to get me teary-eyed, and that’s ‘I Am Moana,’ which really resonates with me. Laga’aia is a great singer and sings the hell out of the song (though I am really partial to Auli’i Cravalho’s more full-toned voice), and the context of that song in the story still hits me hard. I cried at this point in the animated film, and I cried again at this part. Later, during the climax as Moana goes toe-to-toe with Te Ka – the only extensively CGI-heavy sequence in the film that I enjoyed watching – I once again found myself in tears when Moana restores the heart of Te Fits. Again, I am a sucker for stories about healing, and Te Fiti’s story always gets me in tears.
So, while I’m not a big fan of the entire movie, the story of Moana still holds in whatever format it is delivered in. But this movie just makes me want to watch the original cartoon all over again. I really question the need for these live-action remakes when the original cartoons are already perfect as they are.
My Rating: 2.5 Stars
Ready to experience Motonui on the big screen? Find local showtimes and get your tickets to see Moana in theaters now!
