Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 55 minutes, Director – Thomas Kail
Teenage Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) ventures across the ocean to find demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) to help her restore a stone heart that will bring life back to surrounding islands.
While I continue to say that Disney’s live-action remakes are becoming too similar to the original films I worry that my reviews of them are becoming even more similar. It reflects a series of films that themselves are starting to blend into each other in tone and style, caught in a growingly stale formula where they’re becoming hard to differentiate from each other, let alone their original films.
Moana, released just months away from exactly ten years of the original film – and just over a year-and-a-half from its sequel – feels so afraid to steer away from the legacy and memory that the 2016 animation has that it feels more copy and paste than ‘reimagining’ (as Disney continues to label these remakes). The songs are still great, the jokes largely still work, Dwayne Johnson and Jemaine Clement give roughly the same performances returning for their characters; and the film itself is perfectly fine. But, I couldn’t help reaching the hour mark and starting to feel bored. I’d seen this film ten years ago and it was better, and looked better, too.
While there’s enough live-action to justify this as a live-action take there’s a lot of CG scattered throughout, and a number of shots showing the characters amongst a green screen ocean feel very artificial. Yet, one of the best moments of the film is a brief flicker of joy. Just a few seconds in the middle of highlight song You’re Welcome, as demigod Maui (Johnson) starts to spin a tale of self-glorifying wonder to the titular teenage future-island-chief (Catherine Laga’aia, who gives a confident performance, striding with the songs) who’s demanding he help her restore the stone heart of an island, which could help restore life across the ocean – after her own island is impacted and crops start to suffer. A burst of colour erupts onto the screen, a break into bigger fantasy through an animation that matches the spirit of the song. Unfortunately, it’s only a few seconds before going back to the more limited sets trying to capture an in-between of the animated world of the original and live-action one of the remake without quite sitting comfortably in either.
There simply feels to be little imagination on display. Too much reliance on the original and how well people know it while having to make elements that are so well suited to an animated form fit into this new setting. The ocean being its own character, even simply waving or nodding to Moana, looks better in a completely animated world than here where it still does essentially the same thing. Aside from a couple of tweaks to the words of songs there feels almost nothing new here. If you’ve never seen 2016’s Moana then 2026’s will likely be likable viewing, if occasionally a bit clunky with visuals. For those who have seen it, however, it feels as much of a repeat as this review. Displaying an eventually tiresome lack of imagination that its ‘perfectly fine-ness’ starts to feel bland.
Because of how similar it is to the original film this Moana remake is largely fine, but despite the same great songs and a hugely likable lead there’s such little imagination on display that it all starts to feel boring, and in need of an animated spark.
Just A Little Bit Random 