Film reviews: Moana; Jarmusch’s Gimme Danger; The Music of Strangers

We know Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson can wrestle, dance and act. Thanks to Disney’s Moana we now know he can sing.

Two main characters from Disney’s Moana, voiced by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Auli’i Cravalho.

We know Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock can wrestle. We know he can act, comfortable in fast and furious action adventures and in comedies such as Central Intelligence, opposite (in a towering sense) Kevin Hart. We’re not surprised that he can pull off a Polynesian war dance, given his Samoan heritage and the time he spent in Auckland as a boy. But did we know he can sing? I didn’t, until hearing him in the entertaining Disney animated feature Moana.

Johnson stars as Maui, a muscular, tattooed, magic hook-wielding demigod with tickets on himself. In a lively comical touch, his tattoos move and gesture to him — often grumpily — and he talks to them, reminding them who’s in charge. He believes he created the world that allowed humans to prosper, from fire for warm camps and cooking to sea breezes for cool shade and fishing boats. When a mortal complains he says, “Humans never change.”

The mortal is 16-year-old Moana (American actress Auli’i Cravalho who, like her co-star, has a connection to Polynesia, having been born in Hawaii). She is the daughter of an island chief and next in line to lead her people.

Like most teenagers, Moana wants to cut free, to make her own space. She wants to leave the island and sail beyond the reef that protects — but also isolates — the village. Her father, Tui, says no, even though crops are failing and fish are hard to find. “The future of our people is not out there, it is here … no one leaves.”

Tui is voiced by New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison of Once Were Warriors fame, though his songs are performed by American composer and singer Christopher Jackson. The bright and engaging musical score is the work of Pulitzer, Tony and Grammy award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with New Zealand musician Opetaia Foa’i and American composer Mark Mancina (who worked on The Lion King).

Moana does what teenagers do: takes off. She has elemental help that’s most needed when she tracks down Maui, who has been ostracised to an empty island for 1000 years after a misdeed involving an important object.

Moana has found the object and must convince the demigod to join her on a mission to return it to where it belongs. Only this, she believes, will save her people.

Their first meeting quickly turns into a song by the self-aggrandising Maui. Directed to all humans, it’s called You’re Welcome and it’s hilarious. You can see video online of Johnson and Miranda singing it at the film’s Los Angeles premiere.

The movie becomes an oceanic adventure involving two unlikely buddies. Maui may have strength on his side but Moana can call on something even stronger. Talk about girl power.

Directed by Disney regulars Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin), all the animation is computer-generated. It’s effective, from a subtle early moment where the young Moana helps a baby turtle to a powerful one later where she comes face to face with a lava-throwing monster.

There’s a lot of humour between Moana and Maui. There are laughs, too, in the antics of Moana’s rooster HeiHei (voiced by Alan Tudyk, who is the popular cyborg K-2SO in the new Star Wars film Rogue One). HeiHei is, according to Clements, “the dumbest character in the history of Disney animation”. Perhaps, but I like him.

Moana and Maui must enter the realm of monsters, which includes sentient and evil ­coconuts the directors included as a homage to George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

I have a soft spot for the gigantic, arrogant, avaricious crab named Tamatoa. His scene with the two heroes, in which he delivers an audacious song, is superb, as is his post-credit dig at another Disney movie. He’s voiced by the talented New Zealand musician and actor Jemaine Clement, who made his name in Flight of the Conchords.

Maui is celebrated in Polynesian mythology, his traits varying from country to country. Here he’s a “hero to all men … and women’’ and it’s enjoyable to see him work this out.

Iggy Pop and The Stooges in a scene from Jim Jarmusch’s Gimme Danger.

American director Jim Jarmusch’s new feature Paterson, about a bus driver of that name living in a city of that name, may be in contention come the Oscars. Paterson, New Jersey, has been in the minds of singer-songwriters through the years, including Bob Dylan in Hurricane, and Jarmusch’s new documentary Gimme Danger centres on another legendary American musician: Michigan lad James Osterberg, better known as the long-haired, unblinking blue-eyed, torso-baring, heroin-thin Iggy Pop (who quit drugs in the 1980s). Dylan is one of the musical greats who appears in the archive footage and occasional animation used in this fascinating account of Iggy’s career with the band that made his name, the Stooges. But it’s not positive. Talking of his simple approach to songwriting, short and not-so-sweet, Iggy says, “I didn’t feel like I was Bob Dylan.’’ A cartoon version of the Nobel laureate appears, with a voice bubble coming out of his mouth: “Blah, blah, blah, blah.’’

David Bowie, Lou Reed, Nico and others pop up, too. Jarmusch and Iggy have been friends for a while. Not surprising, then, that Iggy, now 69, is top dog in this doco cum social and cultural history, even if he likes to remind his interviewer that he was once a “true communist” in the sense that money for the band was split equally.

The Stooges came from nowhere — or at least Ann Arbor, Michigan — and after a slow and near-lethal start (the drugs, the falling off the stage, the being bashed by fans) they became in the 60s a prelude to the punk bands that would follow, from the Cramps to the Sex Pistols. The band reunited, minus deceased members, who receive due respect here, in 2003. While the other Stooges, particularly guitarist James Williamson, offer insights into how the band did and didn’t work (his account of recording the 1973 song Raw Power is illuminating), Iggy is the star of the show. He comes across, still lean and long-haired and handsome (and almost fully clothed), as intelligent, caring — and still vexed by what he sees as the corporate corruption of rock ’n’ roll in the 70s, “cultural treason”. His reflections on his childhood — he was close to his parents — are moving. So are his thoughts about the time he spent, early on, with black musicians: “I saw a little glimpse of a deeper life, of people who in adulthood had not lost their childhood.’’

There’s also a lot to laugh about. His aesthetic analysis of why he quit playing the drums, for instance, or his reason for being shirtless, or his memory of seeing Ron Wood and Rod Stewart pissed on Mateus rose, “their intoxication of choice”, or the story about how Moe Howard of the Three Stooges was called to check it was OK to name the band the Stooges.

Jarmusch uses file footage well. We know the times when we see a cinema billboard advertising John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy. We know the turbulence when we see police officers beating back protesters at the 1964 Democratic convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, about two hours’ drive from Paterson.

A scene from The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma tells an old but important joke at the start of Morgan Neville’s The Music of Strangers, another music documentary. A six-year-old boy tells his father that when he grows up he wants to be a musician. The father replies, “Sadly, sorry son, you can’t do both.’’ Ma started on the cello at age four. There’s nice black-and-white footage here of him, aged seven, playing for John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie.

But at a point in his successful career Ma decided he needed to do something more, partly to help him figure out who he was and how he fitted into the world. His idea was timely then, soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and remains so today: to appreciate and respect other cultures and explore what can happen when different cultures meet.

He brought together musicians from unusual places — Iran, Syria, China, Africa, Spain — to “see what might happen when strangers meet”. The focus was on the ancient Silk Road that connected Asia to Europe and Africa.

Their stories bring home what it’s like to live elsewhere. Iranian kamancheh master Kayhan Kalhor, for example, had to flee his native land twice. His instrument, like most played by this ensemble, is different. I was particularly struck by the beautiful music of Spanish bagpipe player Cristina Pato, “the Jimi Hendrix of the gaita”. As one musician says, a piece of music can’t stop a bullet. But this engaging film is a vote for culture, a vote against xenophobia.

Moana (PG)

3.5 stars

National release

Gimme Danger (M)

3 stars

Limited release

The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (M)

3 stars

Limited release