Disney’s live-action remake of its beloved 2016 cartoon, for all its good intentions and CGI craftsmanship, seems a cynical endeavour to make even more money.

by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

It’s been a whole ten years but Moana is back. Not counting the sequel, of course, which was all of 16 months ago. But this is the live-action version, with producer Dwayne Johnson returning to fully embody the mischievous and vain demigod Maui, he with the mobile, all-dancing tattoos. Dwayne Johnson certainly looks the part, much as Gerard Buter did when he recreated the role of Stoick the Vast in the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. But the question one has to ask is why remake a cartoon – at a cost of $250m – and make it look like a cartoon? Besides Maui’s animated tattoos, there’s a suffocating welter of CGI, from the terrifying lava leviathan Te Kā to our heroine’s beloved pets, Pua the pig and Heihei, a rooster with learning difficulties.

For all its desire (and greed) to bloat its own coffers, Disney does seem pregnant with good intentions. Forever introducing esoteric cultures to its intended demographic and reinforcing the empowerment of pretty young princesses, Disney boasts a commendable agenda. Here we have Moana, the daughter of Tui, a Polynesian chieftain, who is witnessing the gradual desolation of her home, first through the disease of coconut groves and then through the decline of the fish harvest. With the depletion of the bounty that the coconut provides, with its wood, food and versatility of thatching potential, and the flesh of the ocean, the future is looking bleak. And the islanders have only themselves to depend on, as they are forbidden from venturing beyond the reef, where untold dangers lurk. But Tui’s daughter Moana has the spirit of a warrior and on the brink of womanhood is as curious and intrepid as ever. She is convinced that with a modicum of courage, a favourable wind and the luck of the gods, she can find help beyond the shores of her home…

Moana, both the cartoon and the remake, is full of big moments and grand gestures. In fact it is positively choked with incident, behind which every dire circumstance loiters a helpful song, some divine intervention and a burst of magic. There is an awful lot of magic, but the film remains unmagical. Being such a contrived enterprise, there is never any sense of real danger or the prospect of Bambi’s mother losing her lunch. For extra box-office muscle, there’s Dwayne Johnson as Maui dispensing wisecracks like candy and presenting a figure of laughable vanity (“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m awesome, haven’t you heard?” – or, to Moana, “you are very bad at worshipping me”). Having shown that he could act in last years’ The Smashing Machine, the Rock now gets to sing, at least in the way that Kanye sings.

What the film lacks is clarity. The all-important explanatory intro (“in the beginning…”) is entrusted to the semi-Māori actress Rena Owen, whose English enunciation is not the easiest to grasp, which has then been drowned out in noisy effects and music. And that is the film’s problem. In spite of its noble objectives and visual magnificence, it is all noise and music. Epic mythologies are never easy to translate to the cinema screen, be they Polynesian or Greek, so it’ll be interesting to see how Christopher Nolan copes with The Odyssey, released this Friday.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Catherine Laga'aia, Rena Owen, John Tui, Frankie Adams, and the voice of Jemaine Clement.

Dir Thomas Kail, Pro Dwayne Johnson, Beau Flynn, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Screenplay Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller, Ph Óscar Faura, Pro Des John Myhre, Ed Melanie Oliver, Music Mark Mancina; songs by Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foaʻi, Costumes Liz McGregor, Sound Tim Nielsen, Dialect coach Sam Lilja.

Walt Disney Pictures/Seven Bucks Productions/Flynn Picture Co./5000 Broadway Productions-Walt Disney Studios.
115 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 10 July 2026. Cert. PG.

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