Moana, the new live-action version that’s adapted frame-for-frame from the 2016 animated Disney film, brings forth a predicament I’ve been having since long before my time as a film critic: how much of the same would be considered original?
The question does not apply equally to adaptations and remakes.
Adaptations can be from a myriad of sources: books, articles, short stories, real-life events — each domain carrying its own particularities that clash with the medium of film and its own constraints. Remakes are new versions of older films, and if Disney has taught us anything, they’re more or less a copy-paste job.
The list is maddening: 101 Dalmatians (1996), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019), Dumbo (2019), The Lion King (2019), Lady and the Tramp (2019), Mulan (2020), Cruella (2021), Pinocchio (2022), The Little Mermaid (2023), Snow White (2025), Lilo & Stitch (2025), and now Moana.
Disney’s live-action Moana faithfully recreates the 2016 animated hit, but offers little reason for its own existence
Some I’ve seen, most I’ve ignored, a few I’d forgotten even existed, but most (with the exception of Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent) should not have been made at all.
I mean, what’s there to appreciate when the exact story beats, the exact frames and the exact acting cues — yet somehow, with a slightly slower pace and a little longer runtime (animated films are designed to move faster and snappier) — are revisited?
So, what’s the appeal here? Especially when the original — in the case of Moana — came out exactly 10 years ago? That’s not really a long time. Especially when you have the main co-lead returning.
In case there’s any mystery (and there isn’t), the returner is Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the original voice of the animated, full-of-himself demigod Maui, who is stranded on a tiny island. Where Maui was animated, The Rock mostly plays a rock. The stiffness, an added layer of seriousness, though not a bad thing in the right context, does not help the character or the performance.
Moana (Catherine Laga’aia, not as good as her animated counterpart), the young daughter of her tribe’s chief (John Tui), rescues Maui after leaving her island. She, like everyone there, was forbidden to leave their perfect island life. But the call of the sea, and the water’s enchanted beckoning (a magical wave of the sea calls and guides her), is too much to ignore.
Her quest is twofold: find a way to calm Te Fiti’s violent anger — Te Fiti is a living island that brought life to the ocean — by returning her heart, and to end every island tribe’s fear of oceanic exploration.
It’s a noble cause that we’ve seen before, with the same cast (Jemaine Clement returns as the voice of Tamatoa, the giant crab), the songs (by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa’i, returning), the same screenplay (screenwriter Jared Bush returns with Moana 2’s co-director Dana Ledoux Miller, now co-writing) and much the same direction (Thomas Kail, the director of stage musical Hamilton, in his live-action debut).
Direction, mind you, that feels as if one is playing and pausing scenes from the original before shouting: ‘Lights. Camera. Action!’
Released by HKC and Disney, Moana is rated PG. Parents have no need for caution: the few minutes of scares by Te Fiti aren’t even as scary as those in the animated film
The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer
Published in Dawn, ICON, July 26th, 2026
