‘Moana’ remake fails to capture magic of the original

“Everything old is new again” feels like the attitude Disney has been working with for much of the 21st century, taking their classics and giving them the live-action treatment. Disney’s newest remake, “Moana,” released in theaters on Friday, not even ten years after the original. This raises the question “why does this need a remake?” and fails to answer that question compellingly.

Directed by Thomas Kail (“Hamilton”), “Moana” is the story of the titular character Moana (Catherine Laga’aia), joined by Polynesian demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), on a treacherous journey across the sea to save her island by returning a mysterious stolen object.

“Moana” (2016) still holds up as a modern Disney classic, with gorgeous animation, soaring music and a strong story about self-discovery, while the recent live-action version only preserves some of these traits.

The actors’ performances manifest solid enough, though none truly stand out. Laga’aia, in her first film role, plays a good Moana as a talented vocalist, but doesn’t quite match all of the power of the 2016 version’s vocals. Johnson reprises his role as Maui, and despite a similar performance, it’s now very hard to buy into the character because although Dwayne Johnson wears a wig, he does not fully recreate the character, Maui. The rest of the cast does a fine enough job, though none are given significant screen time.

The visuals stand as the most noticeable downgrade. Though now live-action, the film is still populated with digital environments and animated creatures in nearly every scene. The digital and live-action elements often clash, giving everything an unnatural look, a problem an animated movie like the original doesn’t have. Periodically, there will be an impressive visual, but the general fakeness of everything creates a ripple effect that makes the journey and danger hard to get invested in.

The story is still largely intact, though at points the pacing feels off. Several moments felt rushed, lessening their impact. For instance, Moana’s first encounter with the living water as a child, which should be a magical moment, and is in the original, ends up coming across as fairly ordinary. This is a strange problem because the total runtime ends up being eight minutes longer than the original at one hour and 55 minutes, despite no substantial additions to the story.

The strongest element of the remake is its soundtrack, which is great, though mostly unaltered from the original. There are lyric changes here and there, and some of the vocal performances aren’t quite as strong, but these are by and large the same songs, at about the same level of quality. There is one new song added, bringing back original composer and longtime collaborator of Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Though it’s well made, the full version of this song only appears during the credits, rendering it pretty forgettable.

All in all, the 2026 remake of “Moana” feels unearned. It does nothing that exceeds or defies what was done in the original, and therefore is an unnecessary watch, especially in as crowded a summer movie season as this one has been. With this many movies out and soon to be out, there are plenty of choices that can at the very least answer the question, “why does this exist?”

2 Heart of Te Fiti’s out of 5 

​