Remakes are tricky. Forgotten franchises lack the built-in audiences that studios bank on, beloved franchises inevitably summon naysayers, and younger franchises just feel… like they shouldn’t even be remade in the first place. At only a decade young, Moana definitely feels like it belongs firmly in the latter two categories.
To put it into context, not only is Moana the newest film to get this live-action remake treatment, it is also only one of two movies remade to have originally been released this century–the other being Lilo & Stitch, which was released in 2002 and remade in 2025.
That said, Moana is, sadly, one of the better Disney live-action remakes. While it never rises to the levels of Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), or Dumbo (2019), it doesn’t quite sink as far down as almost every other recent remake.
The fundamental problem with Moana, shared with many of these other remakes, is the question of its existence: who exactly is the audience? While there are certain updates to the script acknowledging that the original audience from a decade ago is older now, much of it, in theme and approach, remains the same.
While this wouldn’t be the first time these remakes have adhered closely to the original animation, with a movie as recent as Moana, it is all the more confounding: is the new audience not able to enjoy the animated source, or is this meant to appeal to an entirely different audience capable of only appreciating live-action content?
But because we’re clearly meant to appreciate (or criticise) these movies on their own merits and flaws, it can be said that the casting for the film works. Funnily enough, Dwayne Johnson’s performance as a live-action Maui might be the weakest point, but he is serviceable. The writing never does anything for the character other than keeping him as comic relief built on the precedence of him being, well, him.
(Side note: John Tui, cast here as Moana’s father, the chief, would have made for the perfect Maui. Anyone familiar with how work from Power Rangers would agree.)
Catherine Laga’aia does make for a great live-action Moana and, hopefully, her career thrives beyond this role.
There is little more to be said in general. The movie exists. It’s not bad, it’s not good, and it should probably be saved for Disney+… but you could just go watch the original right now on that very platform, and you’d be missing nothing.