SNAPSHOT
Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world voyaged across the vast South Pacific, discovering the many islands of Oceania. But then, for a millennium, their voyages stopped – and no one today knows why. From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes Moana, a sweeping, CG-animated adventure about a spirited teenager who sails out on a daring mission to prove herself a master wayfinder and fulfill her ancestors’ unfinished quest. During her journey, Moana (voice of Auli’i Cravalho) meets the once-mighty demi-god Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson), and together, they traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous fiery creatures and impossible odds. Directed by the renowned filmmaking team of Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Princess & the Frog), and produced by Osnat Shurer (Lifted, One Man Band) (Synopsis via Den of Geek)
Disney is in the midst of an animation renaissance.
And this time, it’s not simply due to their distribution/acquisition of Pixar, which for a time was the only thing lending the once mighty animation powerhouse any real street cred.
Now though Disney, which rose to greatness with films like Snow White, Bambi and Cinderella, is back on its own two feet with its latest offering Moana telling the kind of sweeping larger-than-life story that made the studio’s name.
Given the filmmakers behind the film, Ron Clements and John Musker, who together have crafted some of the modern films that restored Disney’s animation lustre, Moana looks like being something wondrously special, the sort of film you can lose yourself, not simply because the story is so all encompassing but because the music that goes with it advances and grows it with every song.
In a year rich with some fairly impressive animated feature offerings, Moana is offering the sort of classic animated experience that we have long associated with Disney and which promises a richness experience that few other studios, save for Pixar and Laika can manage.
Are you listening? The ocean IS calling.
Moana opens 23 November in USA and 26 December in Australia.