Moana: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for Moana.

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• Plot Summary: "An adventurous teenager sails out on a mission to save her people. During her journey, Moana meets the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who guides her in her quest to become a master way-finder. Together they sail across the open ocean on a voyage, encountering monsters and impossible odds."

• I enjoyed this movie. It looks gorgeous with animation and the colors. Disney's non-Pixar animated movies like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and now Moana have been "okay" to me. They're more like cartoons rather than great movies like Pixar's. I loved Zootopia because it felt like they were aware that it was just meant to be a fun cartoon. So I think that they tried to make Moana more of a great movie and this time they did a little better. In my opinion Moana was better made story wise than Big Hero 6 and Frozen. The character Moana is a great protagonist she reminded me a little bit of Merida from Brave. My favorite character was a very funny and stupid chicken played by Alan Tudyyk, who I'm a big fan of. There's some good messages about leadership and finding who your meant to be. However, I thought this story was a predictable hero's story that I've seen a hundred times. I could see the steps of the whole journey from a mile away. But again, it's a step-up for Disney's new animated movies.

• I'm a HUGE Pixar fan. When they started Pixar their goal was to re-invent animated films. And they made these rules for what they want to do different with their movies. Which are - No songs, No "I want" moment, No happy village, No love story. A lot of my favorite Disney movies do all of these things. So I'm not saying that all animated movies have to stick to these rules. That's how Pixar chooses to do it. Every artist is different. But I do sometimes prefer you stick to some of those rules. In this movie they do have the "I want" moment and the happy village. I think that if they hadn't gone back to those two things I think Moana could have been better. So that's just a way I think they could have made a better story.

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• But the question people are going to care the most about is "Is it entertaining?". And the answer is definitely yes. As I said I enjoyed it. Half of the humor was really good. Half of the jokes fell flat and were pretty cliche. But the other half I thought was pretty funny. There was some 4th wall breaking type humor that I love from movies like The LEGO Movie. I absolutely LOVED the short film before the movie. I thought the music was not bad. It's not Frozen music which I'm so glad for. Even though it's got a good chance of being as popular as Frozen unfortunately.

• So I enjoyed Moana. I think that families are going to enjoy this movie as I did. I think it's better than Big Hero 6 and Frozen but not quite as good as Zootopia. It's not the best animated movie ever but I recommend checking it out for families. My grade for Moana is a B-