Recently, I have been rethinking how I feel about live-action adaptations, with many questioning who these adaptations are for. I also wondered how well live-action adaptations like Moana (2026) have recently performed. Disney’s last live-action rodeo was Lilo & Stitch, which grossed $1.038 billion on a $100 million budget. I also discovered how well the animated Moana films performed at the box office: Moana (2016) grossed $687.2 million on a $150- $ 175 million budget, and Moana 2 grossed about $1.059 billion on a $150 million budget. The numbers do not lie; there is plenty of room for this live-action Moana (2026) film to do well.
If this is your first entry into the Polynesian/Oceanic world, the story begins when a summons from the ocean calls Moana and her people. Then Moana leaves her home island of Motunui for the first time and sails past its barrier reef. Accompanied by the demigod Maui, she undertakes a voyage to restore the well-being of her community.
In terms of hitting all the narrative beats, Moana (2026) captured every moment of the story on a one-to-one level. It helped that the original screenwriter, Jared Bush, has been writing on all the franchise’s movies. The biggest strength of this live-action adaptation movie is the human moments between Catherine Laga’aia’s Moana and Rena Owen’s Gramma Tala. Their interactions carried the heart of the film for me. I smiled and teared up at most of their heartfelt scenes, more than I connected with the animated movies.
Laga’aia matched the voice and performance Auliʻi Cravalho brought to the original films, while adding her own vocal touches that I appreciated. Each actress brought her own powerful, vulnerable version of Moana, and both worked well as the titular character. Broadway superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda returned with a brand-new song for the film called “Along the Way,” featuring Laga’aia, Cravalho and Johnson. Their voices blend so well, and I kind of hope we get to hear Laga’aia sing in Moana 3 in some capacity.
Laga’aia’s overall performance in Moana (2026) worked really well, capturing the soul of Moana that I liked in the animated film. She had all the mannerisms and quippy one-liners that felt natural and funny for the most part. I thought there were some jarring CGI double moments that took me out of some of her action scenes, but I understand that the filmmakers wanted to ramp up the titular character’s movement around her boat during a conflict. With safer production practices, I am pretty sure they did not want to put the lead actress through dangerous practical stunts and risk injury.
“Composer Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foaʻi’s music work returned along with Miranda, so the music did not feel too far away from the original movie.”
Sadly, the weakest performance came from Dwayne Johnson’s live-action portrayal of Maui, a character he voices in the original animated films. Maui is a larger-than-life demigod who carries much of the movie with his energy and role as a bumbling, self-proclaimed hero to the Polynesian people. Johnson has brief bursts of energy and delivers some good jokes in the scenes between Maui and Moana, but he mostly sounds lacklustre compared with his animated counterpart.
Johnson had to nail his solo number, “You’re Welcome,” in order to prove to me that this live-action Maui could work. Without missing a step, Moana (2026) captured the performance one-to-one with the visuals, voice, and instrumentals. However, Johnson’s physicality and heart did not make it look like he was into it, or he could not dig deep enough to match the frenetic moves his animated counterpart showed us back in 2016.
“Laga’aia’s overall performance in Moana (2026) worked really well, capturing the soul of Moana that I liked in the animated film.”
Disney live-action films, whether it was The Devil Wears Prada 2 or Lilo & Stitch, have faced long criticism for their muted colour grading in modern filmmaking. 2016 Moana and its sequel stood out to me for their vibrant water and sea life animations, so this live-action needed to nail this aspect in the 2026 adaptation. Alas, the visual colours did not excite me enough to compare them to James Cameron’s Avatar movies. This film needed the visual aquatic life on a similar level, but could not get there. The pink-and-blue hues of the sunset were pleasing, though.
The second-strongest aspect of Moana (2026) was its music and vocal performances. Composer Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foaʻi’s music returned with Miranda, so it did not feel too far from the original movie. Jemaine Clement still nailed “Shiny” as Tamatoa, so that was a big plus. Clement’s voice acting held up to his animated features, not bringing anything crazily extra to this performance.
Moana (2026) is still recent enough for audiences to remember the plot points and songs. This live-action adaptation showed that seeing real actors don these larger-than-life characters works well in some aspects and falls through in other areas. In general, the music, half of the visuals, along with Laga’aia and Owen’s performances bolstered this beloved franchise. Ultimately, this was a film for those who wanted to relive the animated picture, but also see the human touch to the world—really driving home the real-life representation that the animated parallel tries to bring in its voices and music. This was one of the better adaptations of late, and will make for a good family trip to the theatres this July.
