{"id":3492,"date":"2026-07-10T14:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2026-07-10T14:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:04:57","slug":"movie-review-the-live-action-moana-is-a-lifeless-carbon-copy-of-an-animated-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3492","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: The live-action \u2018Moana\u2019 is a lifeless carbon copy of an animated classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Say what you will about them, but the Disney live-action remakes have at least given us a choice. Which would you rather see? A spirited, soaring, animated \u201cMoana,\u201d or a purposeless remake featuring Dwayne Johnson with Fabio hair?<\/p>\n<p>The sea is wide, my friends. Yet Moana, the Polynesian wayfaring princess, has seemingly been stuck swimming laps since she first emerged on our screens 10 years ago. She\u2019s one of Disney\u2019s greatest heroes. The original movie, computer animated by hand-drawn masters Ron Clements and John Musker and buoyed by Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s energetic songs, represents the height of Disney animation this century.<\/p>\n<p>But since then, the waters have been rough. \u201cMoana 2,\u201d originally planned as a streaming series, did little to expand the tale. And the new live-action remake does even less. Few of the live-action remakes, regardless of box-office receipts, are covered in glory. But \u201cMoana,\u201d directed by \u201cHamilton\u201d veteran Thomas Kail, feels especially off course, offering little more than a lamentable swap of cartoon imagination for live-action do-over. The lifeless result veers perilously close to \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d parody or one of those joke parallel universes in the \u201cSpider-Verse\u201d movies.<\/p>\n<p>The new \u201cMoana\u201d is an often shot-for-shot, note-for-note remake of the original, with small pockets of new material. This is understandable, to a certain degree. The songs are still great. Catherine Laga\u02bbaia, who plays Moana, sings beautifully. The ocean, in digital splendor, is even bluer.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But all inventiveness has gone out to sea. One of the great things about animation is that it can do anything with a snap of the fingers. You can sense imagination at play. The glories of the original \u201cMoana\u201d lied both in its rich Polynesian connections and its cartoony fun: the goofy shape-shifting of the demigod Maui (Johnson), the toe-tapping moves of the giant crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement), the way the ocean heaves Moana back aboard the ship.<\/p>\n<p>Making these things physical realities isn\u2019t just an update in format; it saps them of their animated soul. The result comes across more like play acting than genuine artistic creation. There is, I would wager, no one who ever saw the little coconut pirates in the first \u201cMoana\u201d and said to themselves: \u201cI need a more realistic looking Kakamora.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The greatest benefit of the live-action update comes in the recreation of Moana\u2019s native Motunui. If the original \u201cMoana\u201d was crafted in homage of Polynesia culture, the presence of real people makes that more tangible. John Tui, a New Zealand actor of Tongan descent, is especially good as Moana\u2019s chief father.<\/p>\n<p>But more often than not, the leap from animation to live action comes at a loss. This is especially true of characters destined to be cartoons, like the rooster Heihei. And it\u2019s painfully the case with Tamatoa, whose \u201cSo Shiny\u201d tune was once an undeniable highlight but is now perhaps the most awkwardly staged scene of the movie.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is any fault of Laga\u02bbaia, whose lively performance is the film\u2019s primary source of forward momentum. Maui \u2014 boastful, slyly comic, inevitably heroic \u2014 is among Johnson\u2019s most perfectly suited roles. So, it\u2019s a surprise how much his performance here struggles to match the verve of the animated Maui. It could be that Johnson, who\u2019s been drawn increasingly to dramatic roles recently, has aged out a character who was a fantasy to begin with, and a wig isn\u2019t enough to cover the discrepancy.<\/p>\n<p>With Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d soon to sail into theaters, it\u2019s an unusually good time for ocean-faring myths about gods and homecomings. No one knows how far this franchise will go \u2014 a third animated film is in development. But Moana is in increasingly desperate need of some new waters to explore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoana,\u201d a Walt Disney Co. release in theaters Thursday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action\/peril, some scary images, rude humor and brief thematic elements. Running time: 115 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3486\">FRIDAY NEWS IN A RUSH: Top headlines in today\u2019s NewsMinute video<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3488\">Toon in Friday<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3490\">Giants beat the Rockies 8-2 to start a 4-game series<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Say what you will about them, but the Disney live-action remakes have at least given us a choice. Which would you rather see? A spirited, soaring, animated \u201cMoana,\u201d or a purposeless remake featuring Dwayne Johnson with Fabio hair? The sea is wide, my friends. Yet Moana, the Polynesian wayfaring princess, has seemingly been stuck swimming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101,1102,149,150,440,167,1103,1104],"tags":[5598,2503,5599,5600,5601,5602],"class_list":["post-3492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-0-no-apple-publish","category-1gridmagazine","category-a-town-magazine","category-celebrities","category-movie-reviews","category-sentinel-screen","category-uncategorized","category-z-other-galley","tag-catherine-lagaaia","tag-disney","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-lin-manuel-miranda","tag-moana","tag-thomas-kail"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Movie Review: The live-action \u2018Moana\u2019 is a lifeless carbon copy of an animated classic - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3492\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Movie Review: The live-action \u2018Moana\u2019 is a lifeless carbon copy of an animated classic - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Say what you will about them, but the Disney live-action remakes have at least given us a choice. Which would you rather see? A spirited, soaring, animated \u201cMoana,\u201d or a purposeless remake featuring Dwayne Johnson with Fabio hair? The sea is wide, my friends. 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