Disney has had a turbulent time as of late with their trend of turning their animated films into live action ones. During the 2010’s, this was a money printing machine that greatly filled the coffers of the Disney Company, with remakes of The Jungle Book (1967), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994) all crossing the billion dollar mark at the worldwide box office. They were making a mint by re-packaging all the classic films they had made before with a new live action sheen to them. But even though these movies were making a killing at the box office, it was also alienating long time fans of the originals. Many people saw these movies as a shameless cash grab that was exploiting the Disney brand and creating a feedback loop that was stunting the creativity at the studio. From their perspective, it appeared that Disney is more willing to cash in on audience nostalgia than putting the effort into creating bold new things that could sustain the future of the studio. These remakes very much represent an era of creative stagnation at the studio, which seems more inclined on doing what’s safe and easy rather than what’s daring and risky. That’s not to say that every remake of theirs has been terrible. The one’s that actually make the most to change up enough in their film to help make them distinguishable from the original tend to be the best, such as 2015’s Cinderella (2015), which is a genuinely great movie on it’s own. While this trend of remakes has been a big money maker in the past for Disney, their results have been a bit more mixed in the 2020’s. They experienced a lot of success with the remakes of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Lilo and Stitch (2002), especially with the latter as it became a billion dollar grosser. But those successes were dampened by the colossal box office failure of their Snow White (2025) remake, a movie that Disney took a massive financial hit on. It makes many wonder if this remake trend has hit it’s breaking point, as audiences seem less interested now in these nostalgia bait films.
Another thing that Disney has to contend with is that their well has tapped out when it comes to the movies that they can adapt into live action. They’ve already remade all the biggest films of the Disney Renaissance era, and the ones that remain un-remade are the ones that weren’t box office successes to begin with. They are also learning that it’s more difficult to remake the movies of Walt’s era as well, as the failures of their remakes of Snow White, Pinocchio (2022) and Dumbo (2019) will attest. But, at the same time, the Disney company did see Lilo and Stitch (2025) cross the billion dollar mark, so there are some in the company that still see money to be made in mining their library. It seems to be less about the different eras of Disney Animation and more about what individual movies have their own built in audiences. One thing Disney is learning about is how well the fandoms of these movies carry over through each film. Despite the divisive reaction from critics, 2019’s The Lion King still landed with audiences and became a massive success. And that success surprisingly maintained itself as Disney followed that film up with a prequel called Mufasa: The Lion King (2024). While that movie didn’t make nearly as much as it’s predecessor, it still put up an impressive worldwide gross of over $700 million, showing that even a prequel of a remake of The Lion King was still able to capitalize on it’s built in audience. So, Disney is making it’s choices of remakes more geared around what they know has worked well for them in the past. One of the studio’s current heavy hitters is the animated classic Moana (2016). The final film from animation legends John Musker and Ron Clements, Moana had a fairly respectable run at the box office when it first released, but it only has grown in esteem since then. Moana has consistently been one of the top performing films in streaming, putting up bigger watch time numbers than even Disney’s Frozen films on the same platforms. It is an indisputable hit for Disney, and it prompted them to scrap a straight to streaming animated series in favor of an actual theatrical sequel, which then of course went on to break several box office records. Moana 2 (2024) proved that this was a juggernaut franchise for Disney, so it’s not at all surprising that they rushed forward to create a live action version as well, marking the shortest window between any Disney remake and their original. But is this a journey that was worth taking for Moana and Disney, or is it washed out to see like many of the other recent remake stumbles.
The story of Moana will be familiar to anyone that has seen the original, as it pretty much is beat for beat the same. Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) is being instructed by her father Chief Tui (John Tui) in the ways of running the community on their island of Motunui as she is next in line to become their chief. But Moana sees a different destiny for herself as she longs to break her father’s decree of never leaving the security of the reef and explore the greater ocean beyond it; a destiny that her Gramma Tala (Rena Owen) encourages. Fate intervenes when the crops begin failing on the island, which puts stress on the survival of the islanders. Thanks to Gramma Tala, Moana learns that her ancestors were voyagers that sailed out into the ocean to find new land and that there is a reason why the island is in danger now. A thousand years prior, the heart of the goddess Te Fiti was stolen by the shape-shifting demi god Maui (Dwayne Johnson), and with the heart stolen, a curse was placed on the ocean, with disease and famine spreading from island to island. That curse has now reached the shores of Motunui, and Tala reveals to Moana that she has been chosen by the Ocean itself to find Maui and force him to return the Heart of Te Fiti to it’s rightful place. Moana leaves her home island behind, venturing out onto the open ocean alone (apart from her bird brain pet rooster Hei Hei). She manages to stumble upon a deserted island where Maui has been exiled for hundreds of years, and discovers that he is powerless due to having lost his magic fish hook, the source of his power. In order to reverse the curse placed on the islands in the ocean, Moana and Maui must band together and locate Maui’s hook so that he can then restore the heart and undo the mess he has made. But to do that, they must face a harrowing trial of dangers, including facing the dreaded tribe of Kakamora, a giant treasure hoarding crab named Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement), and the fearsome lava monster Te Ka that guard the island of Te Fiti. Will Moana and Maui manage to restore the heart and restore life to the ocean? If you’ve seen the original movie, you probably already know the answer.
I’ve had fairly mixed feelings about the Disney remakes. On the whole I find them pointless, because for most of them, they come nowhere close to matching the original movies. And yet, I still find nuance in my reactions to them, because even though they are remakes, that doesn’t mean that they are all bad. I already stated that I think the Cinderella remake is a genuinely great movie, and one worthy of carrying on the legacy of the original while also being it’s own thing. I also was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked The Little Mermaid (2023) and Aladdin (2019). They were still flawed and nowhere near as good as the originals, but there was enough good things in them that I still enjoyed watching them. The same goes for the movies that aren’t quite remakes but are inspired by the original films like Cruella (2021). Otherwise, for the most part I just feel like a lot of these movies are just pale imitations, like Lilo and Stitch (2025), The Jungle Book (2016), Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), and yes even Snow White, which was far from the worst one. The ones that I genuinely don’t like are the remakes that completely miss the point of the originals or just fumble the adaptation so poorly, like Beauty and the Beast (2017), Maleficent (2014), or Pinocchio (2022). But the worst of the bunch are the movies that don’t even try to be anything other than just a copy and paste job, changing nothing except the visual look of the film going from animation to live action, which is always a downgrade. This was made me hate The Lion King (2019) remake so much, because it was a shameful low effort remake that just did the whole film again almost shot for shot, but removed all the charm that the original had through it’s animation. I hate to say it, but that’s what this Moana remake is as well. While this remake does get points for actually using real actors unlike The Lion King’s all-CGI “live action,” it at the same time is the same low effort copy and paste job as that movie was. They literally changed nothing, except for the live action part. It’s the same exact script, and the movie even recreates exact shots from the original. You are going to get a weird sense of Deja Vu while watching this movie because it repeats every single beat, and yet feels lifeless by comparison.
The film was directed by Thomas Kail in his feature film debut, and it definitely shows. Kail has previously been a director of stage musicals, most notably helping bring the musical Hamilton to Broadway for it’s historic run. The reason he got this gig directing a Moana remake is because Hamilton’s creator and leading man Lin-Manuel Miranda also wrote the hit songs from the original movie. That connection likely landed him this job, as Disney already had him in the family due to the premiere of the Hamilton pro-shot version of the musical that he also directed that premiered on Disney+ to great success. Kail is no doubt a skilled director for the medium of the stage, but directing for a feature film is another kind of disciplined, and it probably wasn’t good for Kail to cut his teeth on a project of this scale right off the bat. Despite the movie using the blueprint of the original, the film just feels lifeless. You always get a sense of the actors acting in front of a green screen as there is a very stagey way to how the film is blocked and framed. The only time the movie tries to dazzle us with it’s impressive scale is when it is literally calling back to shots from the original film. If there was ever a movie that stressed the superiority of animation, particularly when it comes to these remakes, this is the one. There is no surprise to this movie; it’s just the same exact movie over again, but done worse. All the jokes are the same, but somehow land with less impact (yes, they even do the Disney Princess joke again, word for word). As much as I criticize what Kail brought to this film, I don’t want to put the blame on him solely. He was hired to do a job, and he tried the best he could given his limited experience. It’s not his fault that the movie is just a mediocre rehash; that’s Disney’s fault for not taking any chances. There could have been a decent remake of this movie made had they tried to change things up to make it more surprising. Hell, even Snow White did better at this by changing parts of the story to differentiate itself from the original. You can make these remakes better if you give us the thing that we didn’t expect to happen and also have fun with that. Moana doesn’t take any chances and it just believes that it’s audience will show up no matter what even if we are getting the same movie all over again.
Like I said, at least we have real actors this time on screen as opposed to the CGI animals with celebrity voices in The Lion King. Austrailian actress Catherine Laga’aia has the daunting task of bringing the iconic character to life on screen. To her credit, she looks the part and she does try her hardest to play the part right. The problem is the lifelessness of the rest of the film, which likewise leaves her looking lost on screen. There’s no way she can manage to match the liveliness of her animated counterpart, and sadly her singing voice (while still good) can’t quite hit the high notes as well as Auli’i Cravalho did in her vocal performance. But as wooden as Catherine’s performance may be at times, it’s nothing compared to Dwayne Johnson’s performance as Maui. The strange thing is that this should have been a cake walk for him as Dwayne originated the role in the animated film. His vocal performance as Maui in the original is rightly praised for the energy and personality he put into the character, and he continued to do that in the sequel alongside Auli’i who also reprised her role. But all of that is missing here in this version of Maui. Dwayne just looks bored throughout the film. He’s delivering the same exact lines, but he comes across as more aloof and distant. Also, it’s clear that he can’t pull off Maui’s look either. It’s obvious those aren’t Dwayne’s real muscles and flowing mane of hair just looks like a cheap wig. It’s not the first time we’ve seen an actor reprise a role from animation to live action, as Gerard Butler did the same in the How to Train Your Dragon remake from last year. But Butler actually put in some effort to bring his character to life in live action, and honestly gave the best performance in that film, which is really saying something. Here it just looks like Dwayne Johnson is just going through the motions to collect a paycheck. Sadly he has absolutely no chemistry with Catherine Laga’aia, which really hurts the movie because the chemistry between the characters of Moana and Maui is central to the story. There is one performance that does manage to shine in this film, and that’s Rena Owen as Gramma Tala. The veteran Maori actress takes on the role originated by fellow Kiwi performer Rachel House, and she brings a wonderful sense of warmth and soul to the character. She easily steals every scene she is in, even if all of it is exactly a repeat of the original film. The other positive about this movie is that it’s likely the first big budget studio film to have the entire cast be of Polynesian ancestry, which is historic in it’s own right.
A large reason why people still watch these movies is because they want to see what these animated worlds look like when brought into live action. This often is a mixed bag when it comes to these Disney remakes. While some characters manage to translate successfully into live action, like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, other times the live action translation just doesn’t work out. Check out the monstrosities that were the enchanted appliances in Beauty and the Beast, or the expressionless animals of The Lion King. Disney also ran into hot water by making the Seven Dwarves CGI characters rather than casting real little people in the roles for Snow White. While the use of real actors for the main roles is a positive, the film also loses something when bringing the animals to life in this movie. Hei Hei and Moana’s pet pig Pua are entirely CGI animated, and of course lack any of the personality of their cartoonish counterparts. The same goes for Tamatoa, who has that weird live action/cartoonish hybrid look that also made Sebastian from The Little Mermaid feel off in that remake as well. I guess it is nice that they got Jemaine Clement to return to voice the character, though it’s kind of pointless given that he’s just doing the same lines all over again. You could’ve used all of the original vocal tracks and no one would’ve known the difference. One of the many problems with these remakes is that they often feel over produced. There is so much visual effects work put into the film to make it exactly like the original animated movie, that you wonder why they even felt it necessary to remake this movie at all. The budget for this film was a reported $250 million, which is probably twice the amount that was spent making the original. And it barely looks realistic at all, which is kind of missing the point of remaking something in live action. The credits say it was shot on location in Hawaii, but I couldn’t tell you what, because the whole movie has this whole desaturated feel that makes it feel like all of it was run through a computer with the actors performing in front of a digital background. It’s not AI levels of detached reality, but it also shows that even the best computer animation that money can buy can still feel flat when you don’t know how to use it. If anything, it just shows why animation is vastly superior in telling a story like this because it allows for more creativity in the visuals than being weighted down by the limitations of what you can shoot on set.
Unfortunately, this Moana is in the lowest tier of Disney live action remakes, and that’s mainly due to it lacking any identity unto itself. It is quite simply an inferior version of the original in every way. On the bright side, it’s so utterly forgettable that I don’t think it’s going to ruin the legacy of the original. If anything, it’s going to spotlight just how much better the original Moana is by comparison. But, even so, this is another warning sign that these movies are not doing any favors for the Disney brand other than a short term financial gain, and even that cash cow is running dry. It’s only been 10 years since the original film hit theaters, which I don’t think has even been long enough for audiences to have built up a feeling of nostalgia for it. One of the reasons why the Disney Renaissance era classics led to these ultra successful remakes is because the audience that came of age during the release of the originals are now adults with their own kids today, and that’s what made them come to the theaters in such high numbers, through that sharing of their love of these stories through multiple generations. The people who grew up with Moana are still likely kids themselves, and haven’t had children of their own yet to bring to the theaters with them yet. I don’t know ultimately how this movie will perform, but it likely won’t be enough to justify the $250 million price tag. If anything, Disney needs to reassess whether or not it’s worth putting in a quarter of a billion dollars into making a movie that they already made before. Sure, you do occasionally get a Lilo and Stitch like payoff (which cost much less to make by the way, thus making it more profitable), but you also risk a steep financial cost if it doesn’t work, like with Snow White. And Snow White actually looks better than Moana by comparison, because it actually attempted to do things different. I feel like people are just going to ignore this remake in favor of rewatching the original. There already seems to be signs that Disney is winding down their remake pipeline, with only a Tangled (2010) remake and a Lilo and Stitch sequel in the foreseeable future. They got some big wins, but those are now being overshadowed by the failures, and they should probably put a stop to them before they do any more damage to the Disney legacy. They need to be innovators again, and not just cashing in on their past glory. This Moana is unfortunately dead in the water and no amount of nostalgia magic is going to come to it’s rescue.
Rating: 4/10