As the title suggests, it’s taken me a while to finally check out Moana, despite positive recommendations from several friends. I guess I’m just a late adaptor—but, now I have seen it and I loved it.

I particularly liked the graphic visualization of the story, which  was both realistic and beautiful, and the overall characterization. I also like that it was a Pasifika story throughout and one that seemed to by and large respect the Maui myth material. Perhaps the trickster aspect of Maui could have been played up more, but in the stories I’ve read he also liked to play jokes and pranks, so focusing on that aspect of his character seemed like an OK creative choice.

And I really loved Moana as a character. So often when heroines are trumpeted as being ‘strong’ I find they end up lacking agency in terms of the overall storytelling, but that was definitely not the case with Moana. She had gumption and grit and when the going got tough she stayed the course and made the difference.

As Courtney Schafer pointed out when we discussed it afterward, although there is nothing wrong with romance in stories (as I observed on Supernatural Underground recently, love does kind make the world go round), in this case it was refreshing that romance was not part of the story, i.e it wasn’t necessary for this particular adventure. And—to extend our discussion further—Maui and Moana had a great relationship without needing to add romantic entanglement to the mix.

All in all, this was a quest journey tale and an adventure story—and a great one, too.

So if any readers out there haven’t already seen Moana, I do recommend it. (Unless you don’t like musicals, in which case, be warned—here be singing.)

P.S. I’m kinda chuffed that so many fellow Kiwis were part of the making of the movie, including Temuera Morrison, Rachel House, Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, and Oscar Kightley.