Moana

Disney squeezed two films into 2016. Zootopia was a satisfying twisty mystery with a broad and often hilarious animal cast, while Moana offered a very focused ocean quest story with a far smaller roster.

While I certainly liked Moana, admired the decision to explore a culture Disney hasn’t touched before, and had much to celebrate technically, I can’t call it a classic – and nor do I think it will endure. In fact, having just read that directors Clements and Musker (helmsmen of Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Hercules, amongst others) wanted to adapt Terry Pratchett’s Mort but came up against rights acquisition issues, I have to admit wishing they were able to do that instead.

The progressive nature of Moana has been trumpeted enough it almost feels like criticising the piece is tantamount to being racially insensitive, but in general it’s the Polynesian elements that really shine through here. Moana herself is a superb character, likeable, believable, shaped by her background but with plenty of her own personality, too – and not just because of her little pithy comments, either. I loved seeing the animated tattoos, the supernatural manifestations of natural forces and the mythological evils. The evocation of the wonders seen by seafaring tribes was great, and there was some superb music, too – even if my favourite was the rather Bowie-ish ‘Shiny’ number that was decidedly non-Polynesian.

For me, the problem was firmly with Maui, a figure central to Polynesian mythology and a secondary character with more screentime than many Disney protagonists. He absolutely needed to be strange, formidable, a little otherworldly but most importantly, extremely likeable. And for all The Rock’s best efforts and for all the tattoos helped, he just wasn’t likeable. He was slow-witted, self-absorbed, violent, reckless and didn’t really grow or learn even as he warmed to Moana. He was oafish and occasionally murderous, and for all the Moana herself was the real hero of the piece, he was the one with the superpowers, he was the one who drove the plot and he was the one who gained the most from the events of the story – if anything, he was a big patriarchal power symbol around which vaguely feminist themes had to twist themselves. And he was no Genie or even a Wreck-It Ralph, a character it’s fun to see through the whole movie even with their flaws. He was just not interesting or compelling at all.

So with only Moana herself and a very straightforward quest to carry the film, it felt very light in the plot department. Certainly not a bad film, but nowhere near the best of these directors’ output, or that of recent Disney releases. 

Aladdin (1992)

The Lion King was the Disney film that dominated my childhood, but right alongside it was its immediate predecessor, Aladdin. And because it was one I watched as a child, it was only later that it struck me how very bizarre a film this is. It’s unlike other Disney films, unlike other comedies of the period, unlike other musicals and visually extremely bold. And key to it all is Robin Williams and the free reign he was given to put his hyperactive brand of improvised comedy on tape.

Released in 1992, it came during a strong period for Disney, in the wake of success stories like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. This was also when I was a happy child consumer, so I not only had the video tape and the songbook, but the tricky SNES game and, when it came out, the slightly-above-average video sequel The Return of Jafar.

Aladdin was familiar to me through the pantomime interpretations of the Arabian Nights story: thus I felt a bit surprised when I first saw this. I expected a Chinese setting and a rather younger Aladdin. Indeed, early production had Aladdin in his early teens and a mother planned, even if she probably would have resembled Widow Twankey very little. I soon came to see the reinterpretation as I do now: a very wise and intelligent one. The fantasy Arabian setting is a defining point gives the film so much character, and let’s face it, Ala’ ad-Din never sounded very Chinese. Aladdin in the orphan tradition actually manages to be a role model as a loveable rogue, despite ‘gotta steal to eat, gotta eat to live’ not really being very excusable, and as an 18-year-old is much more believable as a romantic lead.

And of course, Robin Williams’ Genie character is what makes this such a bizarre and excellent animation. His freewheeling style is matched perfectly with animation that brings experimentalism back to Disney after a long absence. Having 90s pop culture references and innumerable anachronisms is braver than it might seem in hindsight and could have fallen flat. But it works brilliantly and makes the film unique and startling. I’d rather they hadn’t let Williams do his slightly dubious generic-Arab voice for the turbaned peddler at the start, though. I’ve never been quite comfortable with him.

The plot is simple, the romance mawkish despite excellent songs and the supporting characters obvious, but this film reminded the world Disney could take risks and produce some images with incredible visual flair.

The Princess and the Frog

It's no exaggeration to say that this film was Disney’s rebirth. It didn’t make many headlines, but the disaster of Home on the Range and the failure to produce a successful cell animation since…well, since Mulan, really, meant that Disney Animation closed its doors, the company intending to rely on its CG branches. Seems strange that it was already six years ago.

So really, this film is more of a milestone than many people seem to realize – a make-or-break for Disney’s traditional animation department. And, happily, it looks like the biggest and most important animation studio of all time are going to be able to stay on their feet and make more traditional animations, hopefully returning to a more experimental, whimsical and risk-taking strategy.

The Princess and the Frog is far from the best Disney film ever made, but it is a very good one, well worth seeing with or without knowledge of the milestones left for the company. The hook that’s been used to pull people in has been the fact that this is the first film with a black ‘princess’ character – and yes, that’s well overdue, but to be fair to Disney, the last three have been other minorities (Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmine), the rest are all derived from very old fairy tales, and if Nala hadn’t been, y’know, a lion, she would come very close to counting. However, the setting of New Orleans was an excellent choice for the reimagined story here, taking Disney back to their rich association with jazz, neglected since…well, probably since The Aristocats, or possibly Oliver & Company, which I haven’t seen.

I went in suspecting that Disney would be rather desperate to prove how progressive they are, making the black characters perfect and the white ones hideous, and to be honest, it came close, with most white characters weak-willed or grotesque and one surprisingly terrible English accent on display, but it had more depth than that. Race is central to this production, because of the publicity machine, because of the fairly brave in-film allusions to racial inequality and because some rather idiotic critics have suggested that Disney is as white-supremacist as ever because the bad guy does voodoo and because Disney finally feature a black princess and have her spend much of the film in another form altogether. But if anything was racially insensitive, it was the way it was packaged as a bone thrown to a community, although let’s face it, it would have been worse if it was presented as nothing important because society is now ‘colourblind’. Inequality still prevails, so bringing the issue to the fore is good. The voodoo criticism is daft because a virtuous character also does it, and the Facilier character was more interesting, more vulnerable and human, while also more basely callous, than most Disney villains. Similarly, the rather grotesque spoilt white belle character was also a friend and a confidant, a character not out of stock, bridging comic relief, rival, best friend and facilitator roles. The prince was charmingly roguish beyond his silly accent and Tia was genuinely likeable.

The plot was also pleasingly freewheeling and unpredictable, much more aligned to the Pixar formula than traditional Disney. The general outline could be predicted, perhaps, but if anyone expected the incidentals, the surreal image of a crocodile drawn in the customary Disney style being deeply concerned for his good friend the firefly, without any suggestion of hip irony or self-consciousness, then I’d be very surprised. Risks were taken with animation, too, and it was great to see a musical number in 20s art deco style, the sort of thing usually reserved for a title sequence. Disney is revived and revitalized. Great news.

(originally written 25.2.10)