Shouldn’t it feel like a scam to pay for the same film twice? The new live-action remake of Moana, to quote the famous Simpsons joke, is “Malibu Stacy with a new hat”. It’s the same doll only with a cheap, added accessory – “enshittification” the Hollywood way, as studios protect shareholder interests by avoiding risk and hitting copy-and-paste on their animated hits.
Audiences, certainly, have been otherwise starved of original family films. But is the situation really so dire that we’ll now accept Dwayne Johnson repeating the exact same voice performance he gave a decade ago, only this time in live-action, and in the flat, softly tonged wig of someone in an Eighties mall photoshoot?
He returns here to the role of demigod Maui, recruited by a chieftain’s daughter, Moana (originated by Auliʻi Cravalho, here played by Catherine Laga'aia), to bring back the stolen heart of the creation goddess Te Fiti and reverse the famine that plagues the people of her island, Motunui.
This Moana still looks largely “animated”, by way of green screen and special effects. Supposedly, some scenes were shot on location in Hawaii and not in a studio in Atlanta. I couldn’t tell you which. Yet the new film’s director, Thomas Kail, making his feature debut after a career on Broadway, must be aware of what’s lost in translation between expressive, stylised animation and real life.
The animated film is built off the central visual tension between the broad and mighty Maui, a coward, and the comparatively tiny but brave Moana. Johnson may be a bodybuilder, but he’s mortal, still. Neither Kail nor returning screenwriter Jared Bush nor Moana 2 co-director Dana Ledoux Miller attempts any whiff of a creative solution here. No magic, no trickery – just a 40lb bodysuit to slightly beef him up.
If there are differences in script or performance (Jemaine Clement is also back as the villainous coconut crab Tamatoa), they exist on a purely molecular level. You get, at best, a few extra jokes. Clement, at one point, does a funny voice he didn’t do before.
The only truly “new” part of the experience is merely a series of compromises. Kail can’t depend on the original’s tasteful deployment of printed, textured Polynesian patterns during its more abstract sequences, so his version of Maui’s signature track “You’re Welcome” is a floral assault inseparable from the average Febreze advert.
The original’s most moving element – the way Moana reconnects to the repressed, seafaring traditions of her ancestors – is robbed of its emotional climax, all because there’s zero attempt to create a unique look for the film’s ghostly spirits. They all look like Haunted Mansion animatronics.
Meanwhile, the film’s new stars, Rena Owen as Moana’s Gramma Tala, John Tui as her father Chief Tui, and Frankie Adams as Moana’s mother Sina, are all forced to vaguely replicate the previous, distinct performances by Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, and Nicole Scherzinger. Laga'aia feels especially failed by the circumstances. She has to contend with the fact that her predecessor, Cravalho, was a genuine revelation, struck through with such warmth and passion that it practically electrified her character’s bones. Laga'aia is a good actor with a good voice, but when her performance sticks this close to what’s come before, she’s trapped in an unwinnable battle.
If there was something good to be done with a remake of a mere decade-old film (and I can’t stress this enough, Moana came out in 2016), it would surely be to double down on its celebration of Polynesian culture, music, and mythology. But there are no new songs by Polynesian artists, and a quick, new, forgettable one thrown over the credits by original songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. Liz McGregor’s costumes closely replicate their animated counterparts, down to the Samoan ceremonial headdresses, with little opportunity for more.
And, sorry to circle back to Johnson’s wig, but for a film with repeated lines about the pride these characters have in their natural, curly hair, Moana pushes the real diversity in Polynesian hair textures into the background, while tucking Laga'aia’s own, natural curls under the noticeably straighter locks of a wig. Moana’s a waste of everyone’s time and talent. Let this be a warning. And, for that – you’re welcome.
Dir: Thomas Kail. Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Beau Flynn, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Cert PG, 115 minutes
‘Moana’ is in cinemas from 10 July
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