“Moana” is a Disney live-action remake that escapes the Disney live-action remake blues — in fact, it soars above them. It’s the best of these movies I’ve seen. (I don’t count Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella,” because I didn’t think that was truly a remake of the 1950 Disney cartoon.) Admittedly, we aren’t talking about a very high bar. And it’s a rather odd bar, since this is an entire genre in which the definition of the genre is that it’s completely and totally unnecessary. These movies add nothing (except to Disney’s revenues). In nearly every case, they subtract. They have all had qualities in common — they’re earthbound, they’re clunky, they’re watchable, they make you long for the original. You could say that they’re existentially mediocre. But in the case of “Moana,” for maybe the first time, if you told me that a child who’d never seen the animated version was going to see the remake, I’d say, “All good.” Because the new “Moana” truly delivers “Moana”: the beauty, the comic personality, the fairy-tale enchantment.
There are a few reasons for that. In the mostly sorry history of Disney live-action remakes, there’s a scale of how well they work (or don’t), and it may seem like it comes down to the luck of the draw. “Beauty and the Beast” lumbered. “Aladdin” had the charisma of Will Smith but lacked the genius of Robin Williams. “The Little Mermaid” couldn’t compete with the magic of under-the-sea animation. “Snow White,” while reviled by many, was to me one of the more successful remakes, with a lyrical zest rooted in Rachel Zegler’s radiance (and I enjoyed the Seven Dwarfs too, so hate me).
The opening scenes of the new “Moana,” set on the Polynesian island of Motunui, have a tinge of that live-actors-doing-a-production-number-that-flowed-better-in-the-original feeling. But as soon as Rena Owen comes to the fore as Tala, Moana’s spirited grandmother (an elderly rebel who’s going to set this tale in motion), her playful aging-hippie spark connects. And then Catherine Laga’aia, the Australian actress who makes her screen debut as Moana, steps up to sing “How Far I’ll Go.” Her voice rings out like a bell, her plush features beam with expression yet appear exquisitely stylized, and the song is so lyrically moving that it does just what it’s supposed to do: It transports us into an island girl’s imagination.
And here’s the real key to the movie’s success. I thought the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” worked fine, because even the remake was, in essence, an animated film. There’s a ton of CG in the new “Moana” that’s executed quite artfully, and that helps the director, Thomas Kail, create a buoyant atmosphere of visual vibrance: the crystal waves that gather up to “talk” to Moana, the coconut pirates known as the Kakamora, the constantly moving illustrative tattoo on Maui’s left pectoral, the giant bling-hoarding coconut crab Tamatoa (once again voiced by Jemaine Clement), and all of Maui’s animalistic shape-shifting. It all establishes a free-flowing universe that exists halfway between live action and animation.
But the ultimate artistic weapon is Maui himself. He is such a great character, and in the original “Moana” he was an explicit stylization of Dwayne Johnson, who is himself a kind of stylized human being. At the time, it was as if we were watching Dwayne Johnson, and listening to him (his performance of “You’re Welcome” had a matter-of-fact majesty). So when the real Dwayne Johnson now steps into Maui’s absurdly buff bod and long curly island hair and attitude of cantankerous monomania, to say that the fit is perfect is to say that we’re seeing a live-action-remake epiphany: a quick but infectiously blinkered demigod who is just as indelible as he always was. If anything, the real Johnson can’t help but project a shade more edge, which is all to the good. That Maui and Moana have a true spiky battle of wills going is the dramatic heart of “Moana.”
Musicals age well, or don’t, and the decade since “Moana” came out has been more than kind to the songs of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa’i. The “Moana” songs are friendly, with a rapture that sneaks up on you. And the tale of Moana venturing out beyond the reef, defying the ingrown tribal self-hatred of her father, Chief Tui (John Tui), to become the wayfinder she is inside, is presented with an intricacy that makes it more than a conventional parable of girl power, because she’s being questioned at every turn — by Maui, by herself, by the ocean universe. The giant fire demon Te Kā, who Moana has to pass in order to return the heart of Te Fiti, is virtually identical to what it was in the original film, which is ideal (what are you going to do, have Jon Bernthal play this cinder-block colossus?). And so is the explosion of island greenery at the end, courtesy of Te Fiti, who is really the earth mother. “Moana” never makes live action more captivating than animation. On some level these movies will always be unnecessary. The remake of “Moana” can’t, and shouldn’t, replace the original. But it earns a place alongside it.
From Variety US
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