‘Moana’ review: Disney transforms a cinematic masterpiece to kids stuff

When Moana was released in 2016, it was a gorgeous cinematic wonder, drawing inspiration from Polynesian mythology, offering moving and catchy songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina, and Opetaia Foaʻi, and reveling in the creative freedom animation offers. At its core, it was a story of a young girl rejecting the norms of her society to fight for creation and exploration over annihilation and ignorance.

2026’s live-action remake of Moana has the same plot. But because of its execution — and arguably its very existence — it flies in the face of the message of the original. By definition, this remake is retreading the path that directors John Musker and Ron Clements laid down before. Beyond that, however, there’s a bizarre, uncanny valley feel to this live-action version. It evoked in me a similar reaction to AI slop, where I cringe at the unnerving blend of the familiar and the not-quite-right.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting Disney — which has been accused of using generative AI in the past — or that Moana (2026) director Thomas Kail employed generative AI in making Moana’s home of Motunui or its surrounding lands, sea, and creatures. What I am saying is that hemmed in between the original film’s distinctive features and Disney’s determination to treat every animated hit as a proof of concept for a wobbly live-action re-creation, there’s something uncanny and grotesque lurking here.

Moana (2026) feels less epic, more Disney Channel

Jared Bush’s screenplay from the 2016 animated adventure is closely followed, though he and his Moana 2 co-writer, Dana Ledoux Miller, share scripting credit for this remake. Once more, Moana’s grandmother (played this time by Rena Owen) unfurls the folklore of Te Fiti, a goddess of life and nature; the trickster demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson, the only actor reprising his role here); and the volcanic beast Te Kā. While the other children are scared of these stories, a young Moana looks elated.

Kail, who helmed the Broadway productions of Miranda’s In The Heights and Hamilton, doggedly follows the film’s first act shot-for-shot, inviting the question of why remake a movie if it’s just live-action now? (Because audiences will turn up. I know. I know.)

Kail is staying as close as he can to the look of the original film. There’s no Little Mermaid-like choice to make Moana’s animal pals Heihei and Pua look cringingly photo-real. Instead, they look like their animated versions fleshed out in CG. Which, for Pua, is pretty cute. For HeiHei, a gangly chicken with bug-eyes and red bumps all over his face, it’s less charming, as reaction shot after reaction shot reminds us that cute but creepy is a fine line to walk.

But hey, this is what Disney fans want, right? A loyal recreation of a thing they loved just 10 years ago (that has a sequel and is readily available to rewatch on streaming). Sure. But aside from my general grievance about the lack of innovation in Disney’s menagerie of live-action remakes, Moana has a strangely false quality to it. The cast — led by 19-year-old Catherine Laga’aia — gives performances that feel straight out of a Disney Channel show. They’re are bouncy and broad in a way that made me expect the cheer or a pre-recorded studio audience to break in.

The artifice of Moana ruins the fun

Dwayne Johnson is Maui in Disney’s live-action “Moana.”
Credit: Disney

This studio sitcom tone is jarring against the backdrop of Motunui’s lush natural wonder. Here, in the village, when the tribe gathers, is where I could see the potential of a live-action Moana. Seeing a lot of AAPI performers gathering together in traditional costume to sing, dance, and showcase their culture was beautiful. The sequences for “Where You Are” and “We Know the Way” are among this movie’s best because it is exhilarating to see these elements, in which community comes together to accomplish something incredible in live action. It reminds us of the incredible feats humans are capable of through craft and collaboration. Here is where Kail shines, understanding how to orchestrate a plethora of dancers and performers to create a dynamic staging. However, when it’s the movie is focused on Moana, this reality gets lost.

Part of the issue is the aforementioned Disney Channel performance style, which actually makes this Moana feel flatter than Auliʻi Cravalho’s voice acting in the first film. The other issue is the sound quality itself. From early scenes with Moana’s chief father (John Tui) through most of her scenes with Maui, the sound recording has that isolated crispness of ADR. Typically, additional dialogue is recorded in post-production to smooth over rough spots in the on-set audio (or to make changes to the script). Here, this sound quality is so abundant that it draws attention back to the artifice around Moana.

From there, how am I to ignore how sequence after sequence seems shot against greenscreen? Though the seascape is convincingly rendered by a sprawling army of VFX artists, the lack of breeze in the air and the crisp lines around the actors all draw attention to the seams. Even Johnson’s Maui look feels odd. His wig — which was much mocked online — is perfectly coiffed, as if for a shampoo commercial, framing a face that is chiseled but flawless in texture. Then his body is wrapped in Maui’s signature tattoos. But it feels like the exquisite corpse game, as if these three pieces of costuming/make-up were made independently and then jammed together. They lack cohesion visually, like too much of this Moana. So, instead of being caught up in the familiar waves of a wonderful story, I was snagging on the rocks of WTF am I looking at.

Rooster Heihei in Disney’s live-action “Moana.”
Credit: Disney

I’m sure a great deal of work went into chiseling this remake into something that will please fans. But Moana then falls into the familiar trap that Disney has built with these movies. Fans want something familiar but new enough to justify the cost of a ticket. It’s understandable that this action-adventure Disney princess might have seemed like a great opportunity for a live-action adaptation. But Kail is not an action director, and Moana doesn’t offer the kind of song numbers that rely on dance the way In the Heights and Hamilton do. Kail seems lost amid the movie’s overwhelming CG, which, while solidly rendered, lacks any sense of artistic direction beyond “like the first Moana.”

So, the result is a film that misses the point of its protagonist’s journey. Rather than going somewhere new, Kail and company avoid discovery, opting instead to approximate popular IP. And in that way, it feels like AI. It does not feel like an earnest, human expression, but rather a shallow approximation that might have the general look but miss the soul of the original work.

Moana opens in theaters on July 10.