Moana ★★

Released: 10 July 2026

Director: Thomas Kail

Starring: Catherine Laga’aia, Dwayne Johnson

Few things have become more numbingly inevitable than a live-action remake of a Disney classic. It’s debatable that enough time has passed to make 2016’s Moana a classic in the traditional sense, but the remake arrives in a league of its own as it’s the first time a live-action retelling has been released just 10 years after the original, and while sequels to the original are still being made (Moana 2 was released in 2024 after being reworked from a planned Disney+ series). Simply put, Moana is the result of Disney’s two money-spinning strategies running into each other: ghoulish remakes of animated hits and endless sequels. 

Essentially the film is a frame-by-frame retread of the animated original; screenwriter Jared Bush makes a few tweaks to his original script, but not many, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs remain intact, with no new additions. Moana, a Polynesian chief’s daughter, is curious about what lies across the sea, but is expected to stay land-bound to one day lead her tribe. When her island’s way of life is threatened, she learns that she has been chosen by the ocean to voyage out and restore the stolen heart of Te Fiti, the goddess of creation. 

Catherine Laga’aia is well cast as Moana, a headstrong teen steadfast in her mission yet wholly out of her depth. Dwayne Johnson returns to his role as aloof, egotistical demigod Maui, and he and Laga’aia share a good rapport; still, there’s something oddly wooden in his line delivery that manages to be more distracting than his pantomime wig. Johnson is of Polynesian descent, so there’s no question about his passion and commitment to bringing Maui to real life, but his performance feels stagey, hampering him and Laga’aia from effectively depicting the growing bond between Moana and Maui that forms the heart of the film.

A further issue lies in the lack of visual cohesion. Antagonists Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab, and Te Kā, a volcanic demon, look great. Maui’s transformations into various animals and sealife look similarly impressive. But Moana’s dimwitted pet chicken, HeiHei, a consistently amusing gag in the original, becomes an out-of-place CGI rendering that doesn’t land at all in live-action. The film feels most natural when showing Moana’s home of Motunui, but struggles during musical numbers, where it’s clear that director Thomas Kail knows that animation is needed to capture the playful lyrics of the songs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Maui’s signature ‘You’re Welcome’ number being overwhelmed with various animation styles that jar alongside Johnson and Laga’aia, clearly dancing with no idea what will be green-screened next to them. 

Despite such missteps, what ultimately sinks Moana is bad timing. While decades between original and remake are by no means an indication of quality or imagination (see: last year’s painful Snow White), remakes often thrive when nostalgia has had time to blur the finer details and audiences are ready to rediscover a familiar story through a different lens. The original is still too immediate, and frankly, too exceptional, to be aped so soon with so little ambition. Moana isn’t the worst of the live-action remakes; it’s just disappointingly uninspiring.