‘Moana’ Review: Does This Wave Actually Need Riding, or Is It Just Riding One Already Made?

Disney’s live-action reimagining of ‘Moana‘ arrives in theaters on July 10, joining an ever-growing lineup of animated classics getting the flesh-and-blood treatment. Catherine Laga’aia steps into the title role as the wayfinding chief’s daughter, with Dwayne Johnson returning as the shapeshifting demigod Maui, a decade after voicing him in the original.

Directed by Thomas Kail, best known for shepherding Broadway hits to the stage, the film follows Moana’s journey past the reef of Motunui to restore the heart of Te Fiti and save her people from a failing harvest. The bones of the story are almost identical to the 2016 film, right down to major plot beats and the eventual reveal involving Te Kā.

Where this version earns its keep is in the casting. Laga’aia carries real warmth and confidence in a role that could easily have felt like an impression of Auli’i Cravalho’s performance, and she avoids that trap almost entirely. Johnson, meanwhile, slides into Maui with an ease that suggests the character was built around him from the start, since in some ways it always was.

The songs remain the film’s strongest asset. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa’i’s music has aged remarkably well, and numbers like the ancestral anthem still land with real emotional weight, carried by voices that feel suited to the material rather than simply competent.

Where the film stumbles is in its commitment to the in-between. Characters like Heihei the rooster and the Kakamora pirates remain rendered in a cartoonish style that clashes against the live performers around them, and the effect is frequently distracting rather than charming. Wide shots of Motunui and the open ocean sometimes have a flattened, digitally assembled quality that undercuts the sense of scale the story is reaching for, and the costuming and hair work varies wildly in quality from scene to scene.

The deeper issue is one of purpose. A film this close in age and quality to its source material has to work hard to justify its own existence, and ‘Moana’ mostly settles for recreating rather than reinterpreting. There are stretches, particularly around the Tamatoa sequence, where the pacing sags in ways the tighter animated cut never allowed. It plays things safe almost to a fault, trusting nostalgia to do work that a bolder adaptation might have done itself.

And yet there’s something genuine at the center of it that keeps the film from feeling cynical. The relationship between Moana and her grandmother Tala still carries real tenderness, and the film’s respect for the Polynesian culture it’s built around comes through in ways that feel considered rather than performative. It never quite escapes the shadow of the original, but it also never seems to be pretending it can.

I walked in skeptical of another trip around a story I already knew by heart, and I walked out with a mild appreciation for the craft involved even as I questioned why so much of it was necessary at all. This is a technically accomplished, well performed remake that rarely misses a beat from its source material, which is both its greatest strength and its clearest limitation. It’s hard to fault a film for being faithful when the faithfulness is this well executed, but it’s just as hard to get excited about a voyage you’ve already taken. 6.5 out of 10.

Have you set sail with the new ‘Moana’ yet, and does this remake earn its place next to the original in your eyes? Share your verdict in the comments.