Manuel São Bento
7/10/2026
Check out my full review @ https://www.manuelsbento.com/moana-2026-stranded-on-a-soundstage-of-pure-nostalgia/
Rating: C
MOANA had every chance to expand on its animated predecessor, and it wastes almost all of it. Beat for beat identical to the 2016 original, this remake trades vibrant, sun-drenched color for green screen sterility, turning musical numbers that once felt joyously alive into stiff, mechanical spectacle. The lead performance brings real warmth to the title role, and the central chemistry has its moments, but neither is enough to disguise a film that never once asks why it needed to exist.
On a gorgeous Polynesian island where they all...speak...very...slowly, the young "Moana" (Catherine Laga'aia) is conflicted by her father's (John Tui) warning never to venture beyond the reef that protects their home and her grandmother (Rena Owen) who is embedded more in the tribe's ancestral and mystical roots and who has little fear of the open ocean and what lies beyond. When their crops all start to die, she is reminded of the legend of the demi-god "Maui" (Dwayne Johnson) who took the heart-stone from the benign goddess from whom all life sprang, and so she determines to find him and his magical hook and then restore the ornate stone to this font of all goodness. Perhaps that will reverse the process that is killing everything? Ten years on from the original animation and this doesn't really add very much to a story that was always a bit cheesy and thin. Here, it's at least forty-five minutes before the film really gets going and Johnson enters the fray and even then it's all just a little too formulaic. He does look like he's enjoying himself, but Laga'aia hasn't much by way of charisma to match and my favourites - the dart-blowing, sea-going, coconut critters - barely feature at all. The two songs that underpin this are familiar enough by now, but the rest of the music is borderline bland and by the rather hastily arrived at conclusion of this perfectly watchable but entirely forgettable rehash, I was wondering if they were already cannibalising the set from the "Lion King" on stage ready for the next iteration of "Moana" - the musical. It's pretty to look at but isn't much more than expensively crafted wallpaper, sorry.
She sings, he grins wide / Water swallows the whole screen / Talent wins the day
#filmreviewhaiku
