Between the original 2016 Moana film not even being a decade old yet, Moana 2 only being released a couple years prior, and now having a live-action remake, Disney sure has been giving us a lot of Moana content as of late. In Disney’s defense, cashing in on the Moana franchise isn’t the worst business move. The original animated Moana film is probably one of the best modern Disney films to date. Incredible animation, enjoyable characters, a riveting and heartwarming narrative that heavily takes inspiration from Polynesian culture, and a fantastic soundtrack written by Hamilton creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, made sure of that. However, this live-action remake doesn’t do much to justify its reason for being made. This film follows the same plot as the original film, following adventurer Moana and demigod Maui as they cross the ocean to return the heart of Te Fiti, encountering a plethora of mythical dangers along the way. I’ll give this remake props where its due. I did quite enjoy the performances and the visuals. Catherine Laga’aia did a great job playing Moana, endearingly capturing the unwavering spirit of the original character. I even enjoyed seeing The Rock reprise his role as the shapeshifting demigod Maui. You can definitely tell that the Rock was a having a blast playing the live-action version of this character. It was quite cool to see these characters from Pua and Hei Hei to Tamatoa and Gramma Tala in live-action. However, besides the effort that went into the visuals recreating moments, environments, and set pieces from the original film, that’s pretty much where my analysis of this film ends. This is not because the film is terrible at all, but because like most live-action remakes, it is quite literally the exact same movie as the animated original. Not a single line or frame was out of place. Because of this, the film can’t really stand on its own two feet or have its own identity, even compared to Disney’s other live-action remakes. The film can still be enjoyable, especially if you’ve never seen the original Moana film before or if, like me, you’ll never get tired of hearing the soundtrack hits such as How Far I’ll Go or You’re Welcome. Moving forward, though, it would be nice to see live-action remakes add something new and interesting to the original story that wasn’t there before and makes us view the story in a brand new way instead of just being copy and paste. Score: 6/10
Noah Robinson 