Moana (2026)

If you start watching this movie, you're gonna throw up.

There are over 1 billion reasons why this live-action remake of Moana needs to exist, none of which are good on any creative or entertainment level. Look, I get that big-budget IP movies like this are designed to make money. But this is easily the most audience-insulting cash-grab in recent memory. F1: The Movie and Jurassic World Rebirth are masterpieces compared to this.

That opening paragraph is almost a word-for-word copy of my review for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But Moana insults its audience so much more that it’s only fair and fitting that I review it through the Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V lens that characterises nearly every aspect of this remake. So, why partake in such a pointless exercise when I should be exploring the merits of this movie?

I could ask the same thing of Disney. I’m merely giving it the respect it’s showing us.

There’s no point in going through the plot because it’s the same thing as the original animated movie. In fact, virtually every line, shot, and sequence is basically the same thing, just with an uncanny valley sheen covering every inch of the screen. The script might as well have been a literal copy-and-paste job from Jared Bush’s original screenplay. Co-writer Dana Ledoux Miller must’ve had the easiest time of anyone working on this movie.

Okay, that’s not fair. In the original, Moana’s shtick to bait out Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement) involves her walking from the left of the screen to the right. In the remake, Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) walks from right to left. See, massive difference. Actually, I take my earlier statement back. This must’ve also been the easiest payday of Jemaine Clement’s career, as every single line Tamatoa has could’ve been an outtake from the original movie and no one would be the wiser.

The only thing more tired than the script is, weirdly, Dwayne Johnson as Maui. He’s saying the same lines as the original animated movie, but they’re all missing that extra 10 per cent of zeal he brought to Maui the first time around. When he first meets Moana, he looks bored and over everything rather than the excited mischievousness one would expect from being given a potential escape route. That persists in every moment he’s on screen. Maybe he also thought the Maui wig looked utterly ridiculous, or perhaps it was the residual disdain for the 40-pound body suit he had to wear.

The only positive aspect is Laga’aia as Moana. She does her best with the character, but there’s only so much one can do with a nothing-there script and blue screens to act off. The music video sequence of her performance of ‘How Far I’ll Go’ gives off the same lifelessness as the musical sequences of the 2019 version of The Lion King, which encapsulates Moana as a whole. It’s not offensive or impressive, nor is it misguided. It’s just… reductive with literally no reason for it to exist. At least we get to hear how great Laga’aia’s voice is.

Working hand-in-hand with the lack of propulsive energy in Moana is how bland this $250 million movie looks. For a movie set amongst the oceanic beauty of Polynesia and filmed in Hawaii, the overly bright lighting and overuse of the same shades of green and blue make everything look like it was shot on a studio lot. Even more damning than the inability to recreate the animated original’s visual vibrancy are the awful water effects. CGI water has come a long way since 2016, but it seems like James Cameron is the only one who knows how to make it look good on a big screen because you simply don’t buy that any of the actors got actual water thrown on them at any point.

One has to wonder if director Thomas Kail was allowed to do anything that might’ve drummed up a drop of interest. Rather than providing an additive quality to the remake, Kail opts to trim things, such as omitting a funny tattoo joke at the start of the animated original’s opening montage or yada-yadaing Moana’s father’s backstory in about 10 seconds. I suppose he’s the steady, creatively agnostic hand you employ for a thing like this, given how his biggest successes have been directing other people’s work (mostly Lin-Manuel Miranda’s) rather than his own.

By the time the end credits roll, assuming you have the patience to get that far, the happy, fuzzy feeling one gets from watching the original Moana is replaced with disgust. Disgust that Disney had the arrogance to put this slop out and all but demand that we enjoy it. Disgust at how all the resources wasted on this could’ve been better spent on original stories from talented filmmakers. Disgust at the irony of how a great story about finding one’s unique identity has been completely undermined by it being unashamedly turned into corporate product. I can’t even make the argument that kids will like this movie because the animated original did everything first and did it far better. Even Heihei, the comedic unsung hero of the original movie, looks nightmarish here rather than cute.

Moana is proof of how far Disney will go when it comes to milking IP for a quick dollar. There’s literally no aspect of this live-action remake that warrants its existence, especially with the animated original being less than a decade older, other than keeping people gainfully employed. I can’t say that watching this movie is the best use of anyone’s time, not that Disney will care as long as audiences keep arriving in droves. If you were to spend 100 or so minutes watching something, you might as well watch the original Moana. At least that version still holds some magic.