



Newcomer Auli’i Cravalho voices Moana, the smart, rebellious daughter of a Polynesian king she is entrusted by the ocean-spirit with a precious stone: a sweet initial scene with the uncomprehending one-year-old Moana waddling into the magically parting surf. But it does this by feeding these components into its well-honed narrative machine, and producing a story with obvious but well-managed borrowings from The Lion King – with a bit of The Hobbit and even the Book of Exodus: it’s a pretty traditional exile-quest narrative with a sense of monarchical destiny. I s Moana the next Frozen? Or is that Frozen 2? Either way, Disney has contrived an amiable new animated musical that speaks to the tween-princess-sleepover demographic while tapping into Polynesian myths and making a modest, decently intentioned gesture at diversity.
