Catherine Laga‘aia is luminous as the titular character, giving a winsome turn.Uncredited/The Associated Press
Moana
Directed by Thomas Kail
Written by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller
Starring Catherine Lagaʻaia, Dwayne Johnson, Rena Owen
Length 115 mins
Rating PG
There’s a lot of competition for audience attention right now: We’re in the quarter-final realm of the World Cup. At the same time, Gen Z audiences can’t seem to get enough of horror-ish films such as Backrooms and Obsession and buzz is building for Christopher Nolan’s next opus, The Odyssey.
A story about a young woman, not a princess but a chief-in-waiting for her tribe of Polynesian people, who sets out to convince a mischievous demigod to help restore balance on her island, could have gotten lost in this entertainment melee. But this is the live-action version of Moana, the beloved Disney tale that captivated audiences, and especially young girls, a decade ago. The fact that Dwayne Johnson reprises the role of the trickster demigod Maui, which he played in the original, also helps bring some A-list Hollywood glamour to the title.
But it’s still a remake. And, just as with another remake of a beloved Disney property, Lilo & Stitch, audiences may wonder: Do we really need this?
The live-action remake of 'Moana' stars Catherine Lagaʻaia, Dwayne Johnson and Rena Owen.Disney/The Associated Press
As now has become formulaic in the animation-to-live-action pipeline, the story is the same, frame-by-frame, down to the elaborate musical numbers scored by Lin-Manuel Miranda, among others. Other than Along the Way, a new song performed by Auliʻi Cravalho, who voiced Moana in the original animated film and serves as an executive producer here, and a few joke updates, there’s nothing fresh.
Moana (Australian actor Catherine Laga‘aia making her debut) grows up on the island of Motunui, warned by her father to stay away from the water. It just so happens that her father, Tui (John Tui), is the island chief and has a personal history with venturing beyond the reef. But Moana’s grandmother Tala (Rena Owen) urges the young woman to follow her heart, especially since she’s been chosen by the ocean.
When the island starts to show signs of a curse’s blight and people’s survival becomes cause for concern, Moana sets out on the open waters on a traditional outrigger canoe of her ancestors. The descendant of seafaring voyagers, she is determined to find Maui, and get him to answer for his past mistakes and do right by her people. Moana manages to meet the demigod, and after a bantering exchange, the duo sets sail – first to find Maui’s fish-hook, which gives him his magical powers, and then to return an item he once stole from the goddess Te Fiti.
Dwayne Johnson wore a 40-pound bodysuit for the remake, which gives the actor’s body a distinctly artificial look.Uncredited/The Associated Press
There is, of course, a human element to the live-action film. Laga‘aia is luminous as the titular character, giving a winsome turn and belting out How Far I’ll Go, an anthem for young girls, with assured gusto, even if it’s not quite the powerhouse performance of the original. She manages to hold her own alongside Johnson, who imparts the same wisecracking – now somewhat wizened – charm to Maui. Except there was something strange about Johnson that I couldn’t quite put my finger on – until I read up on the film after the press screening.
Turns out that Johnson wore a 40-pound bodysuit for the remake, which gives the actor’s body a distinctly artificial look, even if it made the job of animating his tattoos much easier. Competing with his chiselled-to-plasticky-perfection abs is Johnson’s mane. Riotously wild in the original, here it makes Maui appear as if he’s preening at every windswept moment.
There’s something else tonally off: In the original, the dynamic between Moana and Maui gave us the fun of a sibling rivalry or buddy comedy. This version morphs that vibe into something more like an elder teaching a young woman life lessons (even if Johnson, at 54, is aging in fine form). And some of the impishness of the demigod gets lost in translation from 2-D to 3-D.
Laga'aia manages to hold her own alongside Johnson, who imparts the same wisecracking charm to Maui.Disney/The Associated Press
Moana’s mother (Frankie Adams) and grandmother benefit the most. In the animated version, these are side characters who don’t have quite the same depth or definition of the main roles. But the micro-expressions flittering across Moana’s mother’s face or Tala’s musingly mysterious smiles add dimension to their otherwise minimal parts.
This attempt to retell the story is not terrible. After all, classics get retold all the time and find new meaning in their iterations. Watching this version, you cannot help but reflect on global quandaries, such as the climate crisis, war and human greed. But the film doesn’t do anything to address current concerns. While the animated feature sought to enchant audiences with its rendering of Polynesian mythology with breathtaking creativity, the live-action version almost flattens out those imaginative renderings. As spectacular as the real-life locations are, they need CGI help to reflect the story, which ends up looking cartoonish.
This high-budget production clearly aims to bring Polynesian mythology and culture to the big screen. But instead, you’ll wish they had the imagination to give wind to the sail of new stories.