Moana (2016)

This is Disney's way of having its formulaic cake and eating it, too: "We know what we're doing here, and we know that you know it, too. So please stop fretting and enjoy while the pieces fall into place."

The narrative is a fairly predictable hero's journey -- Maui even calls her "The Chosen One" -- but the movie is refreshing for its lack of a love interest; instead Moana learns how to chart her own course.

An absolute delight, a lush, exuberant quest fable full of big musical numbers and featuring perhaps the most stunning visuals of any Disney film to date.

Story of Pacific Islander girl on a quest benefits from Dwayne Johnson's comic timing and a Lin-Manuel Miranda soundtrack

The film achieves what the best Disney animated features do: a sense of place that is refined and specific.

[Moana] is beautiful in more ways than I can tell, thanks to the brilliance of more animators than I could count.

Amazing film. Not as good as Lilo and Stitch, but then again nothing is. The Rock needs to do way more musical theater.

Disney's latest princess-y adventure gets off to a slow start, but the story picks up when Johnson's rascally demigod comes on board.

By giving us a heroine that acts the way heroes always have, perhaps Disney has finally given us a 'princess' movie that can cross that mythical gender divide.

There is a lot about Moana that is extremely familiar to those who know the Disney formula, but it is tweaked with enough consistency and humor to make the trip worthwhile.

Where Frozen was a defiantly chilly breath of fresh air, Moana feels somewhat stagnant. Despite a few fantastic deviations (including the lack of a love interest to hinder our hero's development), Moana is still very much a paint-by-numbers narrative.

My nearly five-year-old granddaughter found parts of it too scary, but it's a rousing tale of an ancient island people, their gods and monsters.