‘Moana’ is Peak Disney Déjà Vu

In the beginning there was only ocean, until a mouse emerged, wearing a hat and piloting a steamboat. Walt Disney — his heart held the greatest power ever known, the power to turn primitive sketches into moving pictures, and animation into dreams. He could create life itself, and Disney shared it with the world. But in time, some began to seek Disney’s heart, or at the very least, his company’s lucrative back catalog. They believed if they possessed it, the power of creation could be theirs.

But without his heart, Disney — more specifically, the vast conglomerate that bore his name — began to crumble, giving birth to a terrible darkness. We call this creative void “the live-action remake of an animated classic.” And whether you’re the fairest of them all or a daughter of Montunui sailing across the sea, it is now destined to come for your story, and transform a three-dimensional cartoon into a one-dimensional cash grab. To paraphrase a cocky demigod: You’re, um, welcome?

Look, maybe you don’t consider Moana, Disney’s 2016 animated feature about a young Polynesian woman who teams up with a trickster half-deity in order to save her island, a “classic” on par with Disney’s O.G. toons or its next-wave showstoppers from the late 1980s through the 1990s. It’s only been around a decade, though this blockbuster hit remains a remarkably fun watch and its fanbase is still strong. Coming off the juggernaut that was Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda gave it a soundtrack that’s got its share of low-key bops; just because folks aren’t crooning “Where You Are” with the same frequency as “Be Our Guest” at karaoke bars doesn’t make it any less effective in setting the tone. Dwayne Johnson aces the assignment in voicing Maui, the biceps-smooching, shape-shifting hulk with the self-mocking tattoos and a serious case of self-regard. And newcomer Auliʻi Cravalho didn’t just have pipes. The young Hawaiian actor turned Moana into a hero worthy of entering the Disney canon alongside Ariel, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty. Just don’t call this future wayfinder a princess — she’s a chief’s daughter, thank you very much — though as Maui astutely observed, “If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess.”

That line is naturally recycled in this live-action redo of Moana, directed by Broadway heavy hitter Thomas Kail; the word “dress” has now been changed to “skirt,” but that’s about the extent of the changes from the original text en toto. All the memorable dialogue from the first film, be it empowering or sidesplitting, is dutifully recited as well. The opening mythology about Maui stealing the heart of Te Fiti, the goddess of nature, and angering the lava demon Te Kā? That’s here too. The songs remain the same, along with a new one titled “Along the Way.”

Dwayne Johnson once again portrays Maui like a cross between a wisecracking action hero and a watered-down version of Robin Williams’ genie from Aladdin, if said comedian had been shot with a mild tranquilizer dart. Moana is now played by Catherine Laga’aia, an Australian actor who couldn’t be more appealing or better at looking exalted or exasperated, the two speeds most required of her. Jemaine Clement once turned “Shiny,” the big tune for Tamatoa the giant, greedy crab monster, into a Flight of the Conchords-style standout. He reprises the exact same performance, only now his crustacean kaiju is, y’know, CGI. Ditto the diminutive Kakamora pirates and Heihei the mutant comic-relief chicken. You would not call the computer-generated upgrades an improvement.

To be blunt: You will not really find any improvements in this new Moana, merely rote recreations or second-generation carbon copies of moments, shots, emotional pivots, plot points, set pieces and punch lines from the animated film. Except this time, you can see and hear Johnson mug his way through Maui’s blustery narcissism and gentle mentorship instead of just hearing him complement the animators’ collective vision of demigod. The performance isn’t any better or worse. It’s just the same, only somehow less so. The irony is that, in this live-action version, Johnson’s take is way less charming but way, way more cartoonish. His fellow actors occasionally find grace notes to add here and there — a shout-out to Once Were Warriors‘ Rena Owen, who brings extra dashes of mischief to the maverick Gramma Tala — but so much of their work gets washed away by a lot of computer-generated bells and whistles. Some of which only highlights how much magic gets lost in these translations: The recurring motif of the ocean spitting Moana and Maui back onto their camakau boat is an inspired bit of animated slapstick. In this 2.0 version, the digital waters that dump them on the raft feels one step away from A.I. slop.

There’s a lot of that uncanny-valley sensationalism, how even the postcard-friendly tropical landscapes of Oahu, subbing in for ancient Polynesian islands, feels like it’s consistently being undercut by business clearly captured on a soundstage in Atlanta against generated backgrounds. It’s like watching the work of technicians instead of artisans. The animated Moana is the sort of transcendent, mythic yet breezy storytelling that exemplifies what the House of Mouse does best when its at its best. The live-action Moana is simply spectacle that’s indistinguishable for any other generic spectacle out there — it’s peak Disney déjà vu. The original felt like a universal empowerment tale filtered through a reverence for island culture. The only culture on display here is corporate culture, in which a beloved movie is turned into reheated leftovers for more bucks. If the box-office returns for a second-rate live-action take like last year’s Lilo & Stitch could fill the company’s coffers, than this should keep executives neck-deep in Scrooge McDuck-style mountains of coins. But it doesn’t make the stripping of classics for commerce any less disheartening. You’re not welcome, Disney.