ALBAWABA - Disney's new Moana remake faces harsh early reviews.
Disney has once again turned one of its most successful animated films of recent years into a live-action remake, but most critics have trashed the new take on 2016's Moana.
Dwayne Johnson reprises his role as the demigod Maui, while 19-year-old Australian-Samoan newcomer Catherine Laga'aia plays Moana, a teen daughter of a Polynesian chief.
However, the film, which was released on Friday, has been slammed by critics as "flat," "dull," and "dismal."
There were also more enthusiastic voices, including Variety's Owen Gleiberman, who stated it "escapes the remake blues - in fact it soars above them".
Gleiberman went on to say that the picture "truly delivers 'Moana' - the beauty, the comic personality, the fairy-tale enchantment" and that Johnson's "fit" for the film was "perfect".
Peter Bradshaw disagreed, calling the picture a "competent but pointless and unexciting back-to-basics live-action remake" in his two-star review in The Guardian.
He felt Johnson's acting was "on autopilot, like a piece of software" and criticized the usage of CGI, which he stated was "so deeply embedded" that it feels like "another animation".
Bradshaw concluded his assessment by stating that it "feels like a superfluous piece of monetisable content".
Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent gave Moana a one-star review, calling it "a waste of everyone's time and talent".Is the situation truly so severe that we'll tolerate Dwayne Johnson giving the same voice performance he did a decade ago?" she wrote.
She also criticized the film's animated style, noting, "Supposedly, some scenes were shot on location in Hawaii and not in a studio in Atlanta - I couldn't tell you which."
According to Empire's John Nugent, Johnson's role "feels like an AI interpretation", and calling the picture "live action feels like a misnomer" due to the copious use of animation.
His two-star review claimed the remake seemed "so pointless" because the original film was "a fun, funny, poignant coming-of-age yarn with fantastic music and a winning Polynesian spin on the Disney Princess template".
According to Kevin Maher of The Times, Johnson, 54, was "three decades too old to play Maui," and his performance was "oddly lacklustre and restrained."
In his one-star review, Maher referred to the picture as "a lazy cash grab for shareholders"."This live-action remake takes everything that was sprightly, expansive, and ambitious [from the original] and turns it leaden, limited, and dull," he wrote.Could've been AI.
Robbie Collin of The Telegraph was equally unimpressed, stating that it "could have been made by a ChatGPT prompt".
Giving the film two stars, he wrote there "is barely a moment in it which feels as if it couldn't have been achieved by typing: 'What if this scene from Moana was remade in live action?' into a prompt box".
Positive reviews were scarce, but one came from David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter, who hailed it as "captivating family entertainment that deserves to find an audience - brimming with visual interest, vibrant color, gorgeous design elements, and alluring tropical settings".
The original screenwriter, Jared Bush, has modified the story, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's music remains, while Hamilton stage director Thomas Kail makes his film debut.
Over the last 15 years, there have been more than 20 live-action remakes of Disney classics, with different degrees of success.
The Little Mermaid failed to perform well at the movie office in 2023, but the firm rebounded in 2024 with Mufasa: The Lion King.
Then, last year, Disney lost $170 million on its Snow White live-action version, but swiftly recovered losses a few months later when live-action Lilo & Stitch became one of the year's biggest pictures, grossing $1 billion.
