"Moana" — Disney's First Live-Action Remake That Actually Works
Half the film is still animation, Dwayne Johnson is in full Maui mode, and new star Catherine Laga'aia plays Moana with radiant enthusiasm. According to Owen Gleiberman, this is Disney's first genuinely successful live-action adaptation.
According to Owen Gleiberman's piece in Variety, Disney's string of live-action adaptations in recent years has been stuck between faithfulness and uninspired blandness. 'Moana' breaks that cycle: directed by Thomas Kail, the film stays warmly faithful to the 2016 original while carving out its own visual poetic language.
The boldest directorial choice is that nearly half the film remains animated. The ocean, island spirits, sand monsters, and especially the living world of Maui's tattoos, sit somewhere between CGI and stylized animation; this choice preserves the adaptation's fairytale tone. Blended with the photorealistic beauty of real Pacific landscapes shot in the Cook Islands and New Zealand, the result is an unusual hybrid.
New star Catherine Laga'aia doesn't try to mimic the freshness Auli'i Cravalho brought to the animated Moana; instead she brings her own radiance: curious, stubborn, a beaming explorer. Dwayne Johnson, meanwhile, is completely unleashed as Maui — lending the character his own iconic grin and carrying the "You're Welcome" number like a concert headliner. The songs have been rearranged by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa'i, with two new tracks added.
Gleiberman's central argument is this: unlike attempts such as 'The Lion King' or 'Mulan,' 'Moana' works precisely because it isn't afraid of animation's own language. Disney finally seems to have learned to use the "live-action" label as a tool for enrichment rather than dilution.
Source: Variety — Owen Gleiberman