Disney’s so-called live-action remakes of their beloved animated films have always felt mis-marketed. For the most part, they are still heavily animated – instead of cartoon animation, they rely on photorealistic CGI. There are usually some real humans acting in these digital spaces, but the overall exercise has been a nostalgia mining cash grab. They lobotomise these animated classics in the name of making them modern, “real” movies. The latest surgically engineered offering, Moana, feels desperately brazen, by choosing to adapt an animated film that is barely even a decade old.
Moana is an unimaginative scene-for-scene remake that struggles in every moment to justify its existence. Despite some impressive VFX that feel inevitable for a blockbuster with a $250 million budget, its visual fidelity is undermined by flat performances, an extremely washed-out visual style, and a lack of commitment to adding anything original to the still-recent source material. The only new song, ‘Along the Way’, is played during the film’s end credits – a telling sign of just how routine and repetitive this entire endeavour is.
If you’ve seen the original Moana, the plot will feel chronically familiar. Long ago, demigod shape-shifter Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart of Te Fiti, the goddess of nature. Represented by a pounamu stone, the heart, assumingly under Maui’s control, grants humanity the power of creation. As a result of the theft, Te Fiti’s life force is diminished, forcing Maui into battle with the volcanic demon Te Kā. The ensuing conflict sends both the stone and Maui’s magic fishhook to the bottom of the ocean. A thousand years later, the ocean chooses a young girl, Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) to finally return the heart to its rightful goddess.
Moana is the daughter of Tui (John Tui), village chief of the Polynesian island of Motunui. Since the ocean first came to her 16 years ago, Moana has dreamed of sailing and becoming a wayfinder. Her Gramma Tala (Rena Owen) encourages her connection to the sea, but Tui and Moana’s mother, Sina (Frankie Adams) forbid her from exploring beyond the island. When a peculiar blight kills the island’s vegetation and depletes its fishing grounds, Moana is thrust into an unbeknownst adventure: sailing with Heihei the rooster, teaming up with Maui to return the heart to Te Fiti, and ultimately save her home. Cue a dizzying level of corporatised déjà vu.
Calling the pace of Moana sluggish would be an understatement. It plods through every narrative beat from the original with an excruciating lack of colour and charm. Whether it’s an ambush by coconut pirates, an encounter with the giant treasure-hoarding crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement), or even a fiery attack by the lava-throwing Te Kā, every sequence feels hollow, stale, and motionless. Director Thomas Kail, best known for directing the live stage recording of 2020’s Hamilton, injects the tiniest amount of flair to the film’s musical sequences, but they are often at odds with the hyper-digital, heavily staged visual composition.
In one scene, as Moana and Maui infiltrate Tamatoa’s lair, Maui proclaims that “it all sucks”, a sentiment that feels apropos of the entirety of Moana. The screenplay by Dana Ledoux Miller and returning writer Jared Bush features stunted character work and forced humour, proving this is a story better suited to the sensibilities of a full animation studio. The CGI glistens in the more fantastical moments with Te Fiti and Te Kā, but the colour grading feels suffocatingly studio mandated. Worse still are the digital recreations of Moana’s pet pig Pua and rooster Heihei, reinforcing how artificial and awkward the whole film feels.
Newcomer Catherine Laga’aia provides generic spunk and impressive singing acumen but does little to hold the audience’s attention as the titular hero. Dwayne Johnson’s third outing as Maui proves that he both loves the character and has also outgrown it, by playing up the egotism while downplaying what makes him a convincing demigod. The less said about Johnson’s extremely obvious and tacky wig, the better.
For a story about a girl who finds herself by stepping into the unknown, 2026’s Moana sure loves to stay within the confines of the known. The biggest question likely to be going through viewer’s heads when watching this remake is simple, “Why?” Moana as a “live action” movie makes no improvements on the animated version. It’s not more relatable with Dwayne Johnson on the screen, and with its unappealing style and dull presentation, there’s no reason to reach for it when the excellent 2016 original is available. When Disney starts taking risks again, then it’ll earn the right to say, “You’re welcome”.
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