Moana (2026)
Once again, Disney is terrorizing us with a live-action movie adapted from one of their beloved animated films. 2016's Moana is a delight, but this live-action remake, while serviceable, is rather soulless.
The title character in this musical adventure is a teenage girl who lives on the Polynesian island of Motunui with her tribe. When crops begin to die and fishing produces few catches, Moana discovers she must find the powerful pounamu stone and return it to Te Fiti, the goddess of nature who is the living island. Moana takes to the ocean to first track down Maui, the wily shape-shifting demigod of the wind and sea who had once stolen the stone a thousand years ago but eventually lost it.
The songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foaʻi still work, and the cast can all sing. The real culprit is the slack pacing. This version is approximately 10 minutes longer than the animated version, but it feels more like 30 minutes longer.
Portraying Moana is Catherine Laga'aia, and she is pretty bland in the role. In the actress's defense, a lot of the Disney teenage protagonists are fairly vanilla. The film does come to life when Dwayne Johnson, as Maui, and Rena Owen, as Moana's grandmother, are on screen. Johnson is reprising his role from the animated film, and his performance here is sometimes genuinely funny but sometimes awkward when he is trying to match the rapid-fire delivery from the animated movie.
It's kind of
funny to call this "live-action" since it is mostly real actors in front of
green screens that smother them in CGI. Stick with the animated Moana.
