My Review of Moana (2026)

 

Written by Jared Bush And Dana Ledoux Miller

Directed by Thomas Kail

Maui: "You're welcome."

It was a summer of mixed hits in terms of blockbusters and Disney seem to be almost half and half these days. With their live action remakes, they're either hits or misfires. This probably fell into the latter side of things.

Maybe it was the fact that it was less than two years ago, Moana 2 surprised everyone by being a decent sequel and hitting a billion. Perhaps it was too soon to do a live action version of the first movie.

The beats are essentially the same as what we got back in 2016. Catherine Laga'aia took on the title role of Moana and she's pretty likable as character in live action. Her story of course was the same beats, aided by her endearingly dumb chicken Heihei in order to retrieve a heart and magical hook.

This meant teaming up with shape shifting demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson). Johnson reprising the role for live action mostly works. His scenes with Moana and Heihei are the strongest as even a demigod can go on an important journey of discovery.

The visuals in this film are something of a mixed bag. Some are excellently brought to life while others clearly needed a bit more time in the editing room. It's not quite as bad it could've been a bit better too.

There's some good supporting roles for John Tui, Frankie Adams and Rena Owen as Moana's parents and Gramma Tala. Jermaine Clements reprised his villainous crab Tamatoa and he's generally good here. 

- A third animated movie is in the works, so this side of Disney will definitely have more exploration.

- Auli'i Cravalho has an executive producer role for this film.

- Standout music: Same from the animated movie, plus new song Along The Way.

- Chronology: The Polynesian island of Motunui. Te Fiti was also a living island while Te Kā was a volcanic demon.

Live action Moana isn't actually that bad. It's perfectly fine to watch and Catherine Laga'aia was very good as the title character. Even Dwayne Johnson isn't too bad here. I think I liked this more than expected.

Rating: 7 out of 10