Ah yes, the Disney live-action remakes. We know them and mostly hate them, yet they continue to rake in billions in the quest to mine for every piece of nostalgia imaginable in Mickey Mouse’s vault. They’re constantly maligned for being huge downgrades for what many see as the true magic of Disney, but in a deeply cynical but understandable way, there’s always a small part of us that wants to experience the beauty of those moments we saw 20-odd years ago. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid– your average Joe likes being able to experience those moments again without watching what’s considered a children’s film, even while being served what’s a haphazard fast-food version of a home-cooked meal.
However, there’s something even more insidious about the sheer existence of Disney’s live-action Moana: believe it or not, Disney has found new avenues to extend its laziness. Not only is this remake releasing less than 10 years after the original animated film, but less than 2 years since that original got its own (albeit repackaged Disney + series) sequel. All the hallmarks that make these useless remakes bad remain intact: they add not an iota of new perspective to the original, somehow butcher one-to-one line readings and jokes, and look ugly every step of the way. Sure, films like Mulan (2020) might be more infuriating and technically worse to sit through, but even that atrocity, at the very least, had undeniable changes from its original (even though they were atrocious ones), rendering Moana (2026) possibly the most pointless of the Disney remakes yet.
You know the drill by now: in order to make the most efficient cash grab possible, you have to take the least amount of risk possible, so naturally, the story beats here are quite literally the same. Here, Moana is portrayed by Catherine Lagaʻaia and Dwayne Johnson reprising his role as Maui party city wig in all. The two are yet again on a journey to restore the heart of Te Fiti, find Maui’s hook, and save their islands from the terrible curse that was started once Maui stole the heart. Taking her grandmother’s (Rena Owen) words and advice to heart, Moana blazes across her chosen path and forms a bond with the shapeshifting demigod to save her home.
The topic of retreading is an interesting one since, while Moana follows the original beat for beat, the film seems to completely misunderstand what the actual purpose of remaking some should be, even when constructed this lazily. There’s a balance between retaining at least a bit of the charm the original created while adding enough new depth as a modern adaptation that must be struck in order to provide a purpose for a remake’s existence. Some of the most unique remakes don’t even do that and can completely reconfigure their originals in a meaningful way, but some films, including the Disney remakes, can lean a little too far into making changes that completely miss the point of the story, like last year’s Lilo & Stitch.
Of course, taking a chance of any kind is the complete antithesis to why we get these remakes in the first place, so 2026’s Moana is a boring retread in its entirety, but this only makes it more insane how they mess up directly lifted lines and comedic setups within the original. The timing of literally every exchange throughout the rocky first meet ups between Maui and Moana are completely off here, the film will often add its own extension of memorable lines from the original or in some cases completely explain a visual gag that was initial funny because of the visual in the first place and it only makes everything more inept and pale in direct comparison to the original since the remake lifts the events that happen directly. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that even though Lagaʻaia holds her own as Moana (despite the limited nature of the film, occasionally holding back her performance), Johnson couldn’t look more bored if he tried as Maui in live action, and it all just adds up to the remake feeling hours longer than the original despite being only a couple of minutes longer.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music is a key part of the originals’ beating heart, so naturally, despite their inherently catchy nature, they are virtually all drained of life here. The staging of the musical numbers from the get-go, with “Where You Are” and “How Far I’ll Go,” is so stiffly staged that the rhythm of these banger songs is completely lost within the visuals on screen. The flow of the animation in the original matched both the lyrical bops and the warm flowing nature of slower songs so well, but here, even when they lift staging and shots directly from the original, they look worse and are blocked so badly that when Moana belts out How Far I’ll Go even in the music’s best efforts, you’ll feel nothing. The closest any of the film comes to being fun musically is bits of the rendition of “You’re Welcome” that have some admittedly cute full animation, but even that means nothing considering the original film was, you know … animated!
Considering half of Moana’s popularity also comes from its ability to capture the true beauty of the ocean and Polynesian locations, it’s unfortunate that the remake looks ugly as sin, too. Gone is the creativity and expressiveness of the cartoon animals, and here are poor green screens of the ocean everywhere you turn, and frankly terrifying CGI recreations of Pua, Hei Hei, and even the shiny crab with his own catchy song, Tamatoa (played again by Jemaine Clement). It’s inherently funny that part of the reason these remakes exist is to inevitably do side-by-side comparisons of shots and scenes that are recreated one for one. However, this would only do the remake less favors, as pretty much everything about its shot composition in comparison to the limitless range of animation couldn’t be more flat.
What else is there to say about the live-action Moana is another drab and lifeless remake from the company that’s only been churning them out to print as much money as possible, while virtually every aspect of the film feels as stagnant and fake as the body suit Dwayne Johnson wears during the film. If there’s any mercy in the world, there’ll finally be an end to these remakes somewhere on the horizon, but who knows how deep Disney is willing to dig down the nostalgia well to the point where they’re now mining nostalgia for films that are new enough to have quite literally no nostalgia present to mine.
the live-action Moana is another drab and lifeless remake from the company that's only been churning them out to print as much money as possible, while virtually every aspect of the film feels as stagnant and fake as the body suit Dwayne Johnson wears during the film.
Lover of film writing about film. Member of the Dallas Fort-Worth Critics Association. The more time passes, the more the medium of movies has become deeply intertwined with who I am.
