OVERVIEW
Ten years after Moana graced the screen and delighted audiences with its stunning animated visuals and catchy songs, the heroine returns in live-action form, the eighth Disney Princess to make the jump in the trend of Princess remakes that began with Cinderella. These films have grown more faithful to their animated counterparts each time, and Moana is no exception, an almost shot-for-shot remake that moves through every song and joke with minimal changes. It follows Moana (Catherine Laga’aia, in her feature debut), a determined chief’s daughter, as she answers a call from the ocean, sails past the reef of Motunui for the first time, and sets out with the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) to return the stolen heart of Te Fiti. Together, they face coconut pirates, a shiny crab, and eventually a lava monster, helping each other figure out who they are meant to be.
BACKGROUND
It’s quite clear why these movies keep getting made (look at Lilo & Stitch‘s box-office and merchandising earnings last year), but for director Thomas Kail, it was a chance to put “the culture of the Pacific Islands” into a photo-real world and reach the people who tell him animation is not for them (the five people this describes). It is Kail’s first narrative feature after directing the Broadway phenomena Hamilton and In the Heights. Disney assembled a cultural trust of Pacific practitioners to advise the production, echoing the 2016 film’s process, and cast 18-year-old Sydney newcomer Catherine Laga’aia from a global search. Meanwhile, the animated franchise put a sequel in theaters as recently as November 2024 and is still going strong on Disney+, leaving Moana (2026) in a tough spot to justify its existence.
THE REVIEW
I want to be clear that I am not against remakes or translating a story into another format. Retelling the same story is an old tradition in film, and there is no reason we couldn’t have as many versions of Aladdin as we have of Romeo & Juliet and King Kong. Both Let the Right One In and Let Me In can co-exist as great films while following the same plot beat for beat. I also don’t think narrative reworkings are the fix. Change does not, on its own, make a remake better, and playing it faithfully is not the coward’s move either, as Lilo & Stitch learned last year when its rewrites drew strong criticism from Hawaiian writers. Sometimes, faithfulness is the answer. So what is so wrong with Moana (2026)?
Even more than Disney’s past live-action remakes, all of which put some effort into adjusting their narratives, Moana‘s approach leans closer to last year’s How to Train Your Dragon, which similarly kept the same actor as its larger-than-life brute and stayed respectful to the point that the score and costumes are basically identical. Yet that film had the one thing totally missing here: the intentionality of being live-action rather than animated. What makes the format worthwhile is pacing, character movement, and scope, more than any change to cinematography or dialogue, though those help too. In How to Train Your Dragon, the conflict between the dragons and the Vikings took on a new dimension, with more realistic buildings and boats being destroyed. The sensation of flight was more tangible, with the height and speed physically perceptible. And ultimately, Hiccup and Toothless’ friendship gained a new dimension. I still prefer the original, and will always argue that the opposite direction, taking live-action into animation, offers greater freedom to heighten emotion, yet to call faithful adaptation worthless is simply untrue.
There are places where Moana could have benefited from the transition, especially around the village’s hunger at the start and Moana’s father’s worry for his daughter. Take the opening blight, where the coconuts rot, and the fish are gone, yet not once did I feel these villagers were actually going hungry. Real faces and real bodies were right there to sell it, gaunter frames, tired eyes, or a small panic of a fishing net coming up empty. The film never bothers.
Two scenes do land, both moments where Chief Tui and Moana first try to venture outside the reef, and Moana’s in particular is anxiety-inducing, perhaps the most emotional in the entire film. The whole first act on the island, despite the wasted potential around the villagers’ hunger, is efficient: the grandmother’s sickness, how small and limiting the island feels. Those scenes also spotlight Catherine Lagaʻaia, whose longing to sail where the sky meets the sea is as earnest as her love and respect for her parents.
It all falls apart the moment Moana’s journey begins. The jokes are timed a beat wrong, Heihei chief among the casualties. And there is the problem of too much faithfulness. Replicating the story is one thing, but a joke you heard delivered the same way ten years ago cannot land the way it did the first time.
But nothing compares to Dwayne Johnson’s Maui, with his infamous wig and fake bodysuit. The whole conception of the character, from his disproportionate body to the sight of The Rock’s recognizable, older face in Maui, has the opposite effect that live action should have: he never blends into the background and clashes with Lagaʻaia’s honest performance. In many ways, he feels far more performative and artificial than his animated counterpart. The “You’re Welcome” scene is the most embarrassing, as it visually recalls the early-2000s children’s TV program where performers would dance in front of an obvious chroma key. Since he continues to appear in almost every scene after that attack to the senses, the film never recovers.
Maui is the biggest problem in the adaptation, but he is not the only one. The combination of the fantastical and the realistic once again plagues these films. Tamatoa is equally uncanny-valley and unpleasant to look at, and Te Kā offers none of the menace you’d expect from a giant lava monster. It never escapes feeling like a poor imitation lacking identity, and the special effects take the blame while the animators do what they can. The real fault lies with the directive to keep every design as close as possible to the original, until it becomes the ugliest thing your eyes have ever seen.
In slightly more cartoonish characters like Moana’s pets, the approach works wonders, and elsewhere, the technical aspects at least look high-budget on screen. Credit must be given especially to the costume designers, who translate the more cartoonish outfits, Maui’s above all, into something that feels actually wearable.
The best of it is the songs, setting aside the new obligatory Lin-Manuel Miranda composition that plays over the credits and is as forgettable as a forced song can be. Mark Mancina’s orchestral score sounds appropriately beefed up, lending the film more gravitas, and the numbers themselves are well performed and retain the original’s charm. They still captivate, though not nearly enough to justify the ordeal.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Contrary to the general consensus, I don’t think Moana (2016) is a great film. The adventure always felt lacking to me, short on momentum, and Maui’s arc, as fun as he is there, never quite clicked. All to say there were opportunities for improvement here. As unnecessary and quick as this live-action arrived, it could have been a real way to deepen the connection to these characters and make the thrills feel more palpable, but that is not what this adaptation is going for with its carbon-copy approach. Closing your eyes and listening to the songs might prove a worthwhile experience, but opening them to see Dwayne Johnson’s midlife crisis before you is the most hideous sight these recreations have ever given us. I used to end my live-action reviews asking for a Hunchback of Notre Dame remake. After Moana, I am frightened of the images it could produce.