Tuesday Movie Review: Moana

In this week's edition of Tuesday Movie Review, I'm going to take a dive into the newest film from the Disney Animation Studios: Moana! As always, I'm going to look at the storyline, soundtrack/score, acting, and how the movie is brought to life in the Walt Disney World theme parks and resorts. I hope you enjoy this as much as Maui enjoys saying "You're Welcome!"

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Released November 23rd, 2016, Moana is Disney Animation's newest film, and already one of it's most successful. With a box office total of $643.3 million, Moana shot up many Disney fan's movie rankings, including my own! Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the film is the story of an island princess who only wants to explore the seas, however her father refuses to let her leave her home island; but when the island needs help, Moana must leave and find the demi-god Maui to deliver the heart of Te Fiti and save her island.

Mark Mancina composes an absolutely beautiful score for the film, but the real hit here is the soundtrack featuring songs written by the talented Lin Manuel-Miranda. With songs like "How Far I'll Go" and "You're Welcome" it's easy to see why many people are saying this soundtrack is the best Disney has released since the iconic Lion King soundtrack. My personal favorite, and one that is often overlooked, is the opening song, "Where You Are." Miranda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Music Written For a Motion Picture for his song "How Far I'll Go." He also was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for "How Far I'll Go."

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The cast of Moana features arguably one of, if not the, biggest name in Hollywood today: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Johnson would play the role of Maui, the demi-god, however it was Auli'i Cravalho who would steal the show playing Moana. Suddenly Disney had their Polynesian princess but they didn't expect the impact Moana would have on kids, both young and old, male and female. Moana teaches us that it doesn't matter who you are, or how old you are, you can still be the difference if you're persistent enough and never give up. Maui also teaches us that no matter what mistakes you may have made in your past, there's always room for redemption.

Moana was arguably the biggest hit of 2016 as far as animated films goes, which is why it's no surprise that it was nominated for 85 awards, and won 17 including two Annie Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Animated Effects and Outstanding Achievement in Voice Acting (Auli'i Cravalho), the IGN Summer Movie Award for Best Animated Movie, and a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor (Dwayne Johnson). Moana is deservedly recognized as one of the best Disney movies in recent history and it's hard to argue that it isn't. With a supposed villain turned hero and an island princess turned Wayfinder, Moana checks all of the boxes required to be a good movie: good songs, great acting, suspenseful storyline, funny moments, and a couple of tearjerker moments.

The question now becomes: how does Moana fit into Walt Disney World? During the film's tenure in theaters, and for a little while after, Moana had a meet and greet at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney's One Man's Dream (where Star-Lord and Baby Groot are currently meeting guests). However, as the movie hit the shelves, Moana disappeared from the parks. Until this past fall when Disney announced that Moana would have a special meet and greet during the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. As you could imagine, wait times were intense to say the least; with tops coming in at around three hours to meet the island princess. Moana also had a special meet and greet during the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party; however her wait times weren't as bad, in fact I was even able to meet her! Now that the Christmas Party is over, Moana has vanished from the parks again. But there are plenty of rumors swirling around concerning Moana and, not only her meet and greet, but also a Moana themed ride! This is something I can definitely get behind, but for the time being, I'll settle for the meet and greet coming back!

Moana was an incredibly tough movie to give a grade to, however I'm going to go with 4 of 5 stars because, like I have said, it really does contain everything needed to make a great movie. If it wasn't for other movies (that we'll dive into soon) this would easily be a 5 star movie and really, I think it's the best Disney movie in a long time and can really compete with the hit movie Frozen. If you haven't seen Moana, I would HIGHLY encourage you to get on Netflix and give it a view, and then go buy it because you're gonna want to watch it over and over again!







Kevin Scott is a contributing writer for The Mouse Knows Best Podcast. He is self proclaimed Disney addict and oftentimes annoys his family with how much he talks Disney. He enjoys walking around all Disney Parks and taking as many pictures as he can in one day. When he isn't at Walt Disney World, he is working to get back or re-watching Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars movie. His spirit animal is a mix between Simba and Kylo Ren with a dash of Tony Stark. You can find him on Twitter @doubleoh_kevin and on Instagram @waltdisneyduo.