I know you yanks have had it for a month but fuck you it only just came out today here in Australia.
Thoroughly enjoyable movie. Perfect? Nah. But a solid... I'll say 7? Nothing film-breakingly bad, plenty of moments I loved, merely a few niggles and missed opportunities holding it back. And... oh hey because all you fuckers already saw it and stopped using spoilers I don't have to either.
Moana helping the baby turtle to the water instead of picking up the shell like any stupid toddler child would've was cute as fuck and brought me on board immediately. The "FUCK YEAH COCONUTS RULE" song was okay and catchy I guess, but it was definitely How Far I'll Go that sold me on the music and made me crave more songs super hard.
One touch I definitely appreciated was twisting up the circumstances of Moana leaving into a complex knot rather than "BUT WANTING MORE THO". She genuinely does her best at being acting chief, and suggested going beyond the reef primarily in that capacity because fuck it the sea has fish in it. Her dad dropping his fudge and undermining her authority in front of everyone like she wasn't trying her best really did a good job putting the audience on her side.
I feel like there are some older script draft artefacts floating around though. That funny pig sidekick was definitely her primary one at first only to be replaced by the chicken because the... shall we say developmentally-disabled chicken was funnier to subject to slapstick because pigs are cute.
Loved the Tamaota scene. Jemaine Clement was funny as hell, did a catchy-ass song, the visuals were wonderful, and the action carried through it rather than going all stop-and-start. I wish I'd stayed to see his stinger scene but fuck it, I heard that generic scratchy-voiced popstar start singing How Far I'll Go and said "NOPE". Seriously will Disney please stop doing this, putting inferior versions of the song I just heard and really liked does not inspire me to stay for your credits.
I Am Moana came at precisely the time I was most craving another song and it made my penis so large I was escorted from the theatre for frightening the family of four beside me. I think what I liked about it most was how Moana dealt with the situation by realising she just wanted external validation for something she'd always felt, which she didn't need any more. And dived down and got the Heart back on her own, the Ocean didn't just go "oh okay you sang the song here have it back". But about when Maui had his "changed my mind, kid" scene I realised that while Maui had the exact same issues of "I need validation despite everything I've already done" but he didn't get a proper resolution for them. Moana gave him a peptalk yeah but that was before his hook got cracked. I think in an ideal world I Am Moana would've been replaced with a distant duet between her and Maui, but in thinking that I answered my own question as to why that didn't happen. Dwayne's doing his best but fuck would he be pushing shit uphill trying to harmonise with Aluli-i Cravalho.
And speaking of the climax I can't, strictly speaking, say it's bad at all. Rather I feel like it could've been a lot better if they'd just iterated it a little more. The fact that Te Ka's spiral-hole was concealed in all her other scenes only to suddenly pop out into full view the instant Moana realised the Te Fiti was missing felt cheap. I think the climax would've been improved a lot had Moana had to put the dots together herself and make a leap of faith, kind of like how the film itself trusts the viewer to put together themselves "Oh yeah, new islands are made by volcanos spewing out lava that hardens into land, it does make sense for her Nobody to be a lavamonster". But that being said I still loved the execution beyond that. When Moana started singing I was kinda like "Aha so you know I want songs during action you just won't give it to me most of the time you fuckers!"