Well, at least there aren’t any dwarfs in this one. That said, the inclusion of something as strange and unwieldy as the chaff padding out last year’s Snow White would give the repeat voyage that is 2026’s Moana a sense of purpose or ambition, however misguided. Rather, coming a mere decade after the animated original and just two years after its slapdash sequel, this “live-action remake” simply represents Disney’s quickest turnaround from exciting animated movie to soulless cosplay—a CG paint-by-numbers kit whose main selling points are profitability and familiarity. Producing slower and uglier versions of movies we’ve already seen is solidifying as Disney’s core business, and if Moana still manages to be disappointing, it’s because the source material is just that good.
It’s impossible to forget the original film while watching the chief’s daughter Moana (Catherine Lagaʻaia) chafe against both her looming responsibilities and the limited coastline of her island Motunui, or the disgraced demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) pat himself on his yacht-sized back. It’s not just that the animated film providing every frame of structure to this movie hasn’t had time to fade from memory of either parents or children, but that Moana so expertly updated the Disney checklist of, as A.V. Club contributor Jesse Hassenger put it, “princesses, journeys, and ‘I want’ songs,” that it became a modern classic of the form. Moana’s quest—to restore health to her island by returning a magic stone to a disgruntled island goddess—remains strong, as does the reprised soundtrack of soaring songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda. But that very strength means that watching Lagaʻaia and Johnson go through the motions is like watching a drama club production of a well-loved favorite. You know what Moana could be, so it’s easy to see what this Moana lacks.
Helmed by theater director Thomas Kail (making his film debut outside of that Disney+ Hamilton, showing the pure power Miranda has over this particular franchise), Moana languishes without energy from its performances or panache from its images. It’s unsurprising that Kail’s most accomplished moments arrive when still on land: The ensemble musical sequences with Moana, her parents (John Tui and Frankie Adams), and her grandmother (Rena Owen) actually look like they belong in a musical, bright and sunny and with lines of villagers dancing in unison. Beyond Motunui’s reef, though, well, imagine a pirate map inscribed with “here be drab CGI.”
This environmental flatness means that Kail defaults to—once Moana sets sail on her camakau with nothing but her annoying pet chicken in tow—anonymous medium shots of the serviceable if stiff Lagaʻaia and the hammy Johnson. The mismatched duo still have their character-growth-inducing spats, mediated by a living wave of the ocean itself, outrace the Kakamora (coconut-bodied brigands who’ve become a lot more like Minions over the last ten years), and go on a mission to outwit the monstrously glam klepto crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement). But at every step, the filmmakers have replaced bright and arresting animation with darker, clunkier effects more akin to Red One—which shares a Johnson-driven swath of producers (and a Johnson-driven bushel of bad one-liners) with this film—than anything from the Mouse House. “Live-action remake” has been a misnomer since the beginning of this perverse trend, and Moana is once again almost entirely animated, just not well.
Consider the film’s climactic confrontation, which now resembles any number of superhero movies’ third-act visual noise. Consider the very ocean on which Moana sails and the stars which guide her—confined by the bars of photorealism, they’re sapped of the magic imbued by intentional contrasts in color and light. Hell, consider Heihei, Moana’s dumb-as-the-rocks-it-eats chicken, who was once a bulbous conduit for slapstick and is now a mutant collection of polygons and pixels stuck between worlds. As hard as it is to make a human actor look like an animated character (just look at the flowing wig they stuck on Johnson), it’s even harder to make a semi-realistic CGI creature—especially one that has to interact with human actors—look like a cartoon.
At times, in moments of weakness even more frail than its shot-for-shot mimicry, Moana seems to acknowledge these limitations. The film cannot help but return to the endearingly animated mini-Maui tattoo pantomiming his little heart out on the broad canvas of Johnson’s pecs. It indulges in a messy multimedia mesh during Maui’s big number, “You’re Welcome.” It’s telling that inside this “live-action remake,” you can quite literally see an animated film trying to escape. You can also see the weaknesses of the script more clearly, unobscured by the gleam of originality. The multiple hiccuping starts—Maui’s origin, Moana’s origin (as a baby), her time gearing up to actually leave the island—and Maui’s scenery-chewing are less forgivable this time around.
Moana is a shadow, resembling a real thing in shape if little else. It’s not unlike any number of theme park rides or rushed-out video game adaptations—merchandising designed according to someone else’s schematics. Hiring an acting student to show up as Moana to your kid’s birthday might actually involve more creativity, because that live-action version of Moana will actually have to engage with the wild imaginations of her audience. But these self-cannibalizing do-overs continue to make money, which means Disney’s efficiency at making them will only increase. A decade will soon seem like an eternity to wait. Eventually, Disney will be able to skip the animations entirely.
Director: Thomas Kail
Writer: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Rena Owen, John Tui, Frankie Adams, Jemaine Clement, Catherine Laga’aia
Release Date: July 10, 2026
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