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The way water moves always has a kind of magic to it, so in the hands of Walt Disney Animation Studios, it’s unsurprisingly spellbinding. How the blue translucence dances in the light of day, mimicking the sways of a wee Polynesian child during the opening moments of Moana, is unforgettable stuff. The liquid weaves and bobs, twitching its cresting wave like a feline, and enveloping a South Pacific beachside as if it were the universal expanse of every kid’s collective imaginary BFF.
It’s enchanting.
It’s also, I should add, a scene that I’m describing from the original 2016 Moana. (And yes, it is odd having to distinguish a movie not quite a decade old as “the original.”) Theoretically though, this same scene is in Friday’s new and decidedly un-improved Moana. A child still finds a magical tide on the shore of her idyllic island—one that now fully resembles the Instagram magnets on Hawaii’s Kauai island—and it still attempts to swirl and swing with tiny Amaya Masoli, standing briefly in as pint-sized Moana when she’s eight years old. But while the water moves in pristine, digitally enhanced blue, it never shimmers or shines. It knows the steps but not their poetry. In fact, it just sits there like a gelatinous blob, 30 years removed but still not far from the uncanny valley of Disney’s Flubber flub with Robin Williams back in 1997.
It is in an eyesore, and emblematic of nearly every other half-hearted and only halfway-to-satisfying choice in Moana 2026, a remake as redundant and unnecessary as any to come out of the Mouse House factory over the last 10 years. Indeed, it’s kind of numbing to realize that the original Moana released back before even Beauty and the Beast‘s tepid redo with Emma Watson bowed to a billion dollars and turbo-charged this into a whole genre of creatively diminishing, yet financially stupendous returns.
None of which is to say that this Moana ’26 is the worst offender. For starters, other than that water and the inexplicable need to turn the titular heroine’s sidekick rooster into yet more CG animation (presumably so it matches the gags, but not the laughs, of the original), almost all of the characters are played by human actors. So that’s already a leg up on the stiff and stuffed cartoons from The Lion King (2019). Furthermore, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foaʻi’s songbook from the original movie of nine years and eight months ago remains wall-to-wall bangers. And they’re all capably sung by a new(ish) cast, including Catherine Laga’aia as the latest Moana. Pleasant and clear-voiced, if still noticeably green at handling the heavier emotions in her first film role, Laga’aia’s voice radiates during “How Far I’ll Go,” matching and meeting the expectations left by Auli’i Cravalho’s own powerhouse vocals of 2.5 presidential administrations past. So that automatically puts this above 2017’s Beauty and the Beast too.
But maybe it’s the mere fact that director Thomas Kail is such a wizard of the stage, mounting unforgettable tableaus of kinetic movement and pageantry on Broadway via Miranda’s Hamilton and the 2023 revival of Sweeney Todd, that one could be expected to have at least modest hopes of some energy in this retread. It’s Kail’s first narrative feature, but even his editing and camera placements in the Hamilton recording of several 2016 performances conveyed the urgency and movement of his direction. Yet depressingly, Moana is another remake devoid of kineticism or life. It sits on a soundstage, often surrounded by blue walls or Volume screens, while poor young Laga’aia and a wholly checked-out Dwayne Johnson shuffle around for a couple of two-steps in medium wide shots.
It is, in other words, a product where the system of painstakingly, mechanically recreating your child’s favorite moments for a glorified theme park reenactment won out.
Hence right down to the same scenes, the same shots, and nearly all of the same dialogue—screenwriter Jared Bush is credited with penning both—2026’s Moana is a movie you and your child have seen many times previously. It is the story of young Moana, a teenage girl being prepared to inherit the title of chieftain from her father on an idyllic but secluded Pacific island. For generations their family and people have never left this tropical paradise due to the unruly and dangerous disposition of the sea. Yet those seemingly tranquil waters call to Moana—quite explicitly when the ocean gives her the literal heart of the goddess Te Fiti, which must be returned to the deity.
In order to do this, Moana will need the help of demigod Maui (Johnson, sheepishly embarrassed by the Fabio wig Disney insists on). Maui is the one who stole Te Fiti’s heart a thousand years ago and has since been marooned on a desert island. Still, even after all that time, his swagger and ego haven’t dimmed as he attempts to smolder his way out of any situation—except playing wayfinder mentor to the kid who doesn’t buy the hype. Together they’ll brave the horizon, colossal talking crabs, and sail right into the heart of the sea.
The most frustrating thing about Moana is how competently, and even staggeringly, it’s executed. While there is an aforementioned excess of Volume and blue-screen work, the film production really set sail on the waters around Hawaii and the South Pacific. You can see that expense on the screen, along with some elaborate production design by John Myhre. It’s competently edited and professionally photographed, albeit beneath the same beige, desaturated filter Disney bizarrely insists on in most of their live-action fare. Yet in practice and effect, it is all reenactment; talented artists and artisans recreating beloved and dazzling animated sequences like entertainers at a child’s birthday party putting on clown clothes.
Nearly every shot, each song, and all the comedy beats are remixes of something that sparkled in animation. It’s one veritable medium dutifully confusing transliteration for translation.
What’s odder still is when even the performances that are supposedly being transferred from one milieu to another also lose their charm in the migration. And yes, that is very explicitly about Dwayne Johnson, a performer and star who was at the peak of his popularity in 2016. He then saw that renown only grow when he brought oceans of charisma to a vocal performance that got Johnson the opportunity to trade bars of “You’re Welcome” on the Oscars stage opposite songwriter Miranda.
In 2026, however, Moana comes again at a different, and one might suppose more delicate, time in the star’s career after Black Adam failed to change the hierarchy in the DC Universe in the way Johnson intended. That failure likely had more than a small reason to do with Moana jumping the line in front of Tangled and Frozen for the remake treatment. But the spark and vigor that made Johnson’s vocal turn last time so winsome, or makes him such a delight on SNL, is absent. The voice is there, as is the smile and demigod bod, but the performance is missing, with the actor’s countenance seemingly distracted by the romance novel wig on his head. The movie demands the Rock but what it got was just a rock.
Jemaine Clement fairs better while reprising the vocal role of Tamatoa, the devious giant crab besotted by everything sparkly, but given the character is still a digital creation, one might wonder whether they even bothered to rerecord the song “Shiny” for a second lap round the track. Then again, Moana 2026 exists to precisely run in circles. I imagine most children with fond memories of the 2016 picture (if from only a few days ago) might enjoy it, and if you could look past how empty The Little Mermaid (2023) or Lilo & Stitch (2025) turned out, you’ll probably enjoy this one more than I did. Nonetheless, Disney’s increasingly eager walk down memory lane feels like it’s finally running out of road.
The millennial nostalgia trips are exhausted, and Gen Z is still too young to need to be reminded of classics they’re still growing up with via infinitely inferior knockoffs; and with the exception of maybe Maui’s bopping tattoos during “You’re Welcome,” nothing retains the joy of life from the last go-round. And as a colleague helpfully pointed out after my press screening, this lone grace note was literally designed by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Perhaps the whole thing should’ve stayed in their archipelago in the first place?
Moana opens in theaters Friday, July 10.
The post Moana Review: A Remake That’s Most Unwelcome appeared first on Den of Geek.
