Metacritic reviews

Moana has a lot of the hallmarks of your classic Disney adventure — the goofy animal sidekicks, the feel-good messages — but its heroine is something new, a smart and fiery deviation from your standard European lovestruck princesses.

Appealing equally to the eyes, ears, heart and funny bone, Moana represents contemporary Disney at its finest — a vibrantly rendered adventure that combines state-of-the-art CG animation with traditional storytelling and colorful characters, all enlivened by a terrific voice cast.

As princess movies go, this one broadens the studio’s horizons, and as Moana herself sings in the film, “no one knows, how far it goes.”

The "Hamilton" creator and the island personalities of Moana make beautiful music together in this charming seafaring epic.

A crowd-pleasing oceanic musical with big tunes and beguiling characters, Moana is likely to thwack a big smile on your face. And did we mention the idiotic chicken?

Visually dazzling and loaded with charm, the movie is also blatant in its quest for cultural sensitivity.

Moana does what it does so well that you wish its makers had imbued it with some X factor that separates the classics from the merely beloved.

The perfectly pleasurable Moana boasts vivid animation, a handful of catchy songs and a sweetly sunny disposition — all suitable compensation for a story which is not particularly inspired or original.

This is one of the better-directed CG films in the Disney canon. But next to all the solid noisy bits, Disney still demonstrates trouble in slowing down properly.

Its cultural setting is fresh; its storytelling, less so. It navigates the reefs but it doesn’t discover a whole new world.