Moana’s lazy live-action remake is why Hollywood deserves the AI takeover

This weekend you’ll be able to watch Disney’s latest big-budget live-action remake in cinemas, with the release of Moana.

Unless you have little superfans of the franchise though, quite why you’d be rushing to see it on opening day is beyond me.

It gives me no pleasure to confirm most cinemagoers’ suspicions that the 2026 live-action Moana is an almost identical shot-for-shot remake of John Musker and Ron Clements’ 2016 movie, and co-written by its original scribe Jared Bush.

It’s only eight minutes longer too, although it felt far more dragged out than that.

While competent filmmaking and quite splashily spectacular to behold in places, this Moana is also a completely pointless film, given its similarities to the first one. This is, of course, an argument that’s been repeatedly made in the face of Disney’s relentless live-action ‘reimaginings’ campaign of the past 15 years or so.

The success of Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland, which at least put the distinctive director’s own weird and wonderful spin on Lewis Carroll’s story, spawned new takes on the Disney classics (The Jungle Book, Maleficent), princess-driven movies (Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast) and films of the Disney Renaissance (The Lion King, The Little Mermaid) alike.

But it feels especially insulting to be presenting a do-over cash-grab that’s been spun as a legacy movie just 10 years later. Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda has been bumped up to producer, while original Moana actress Auliʻi Cravalho is now an EP. Miranda has also written a new song, Along the Way, which features Cravalho’s vocals alongside new Moana, Catherine Lagaʻaia, and Dwayne Johnson – who reprises his role as cocky demi-god Maui (and is also now a producer).

It’s all just very obvious – and lazy. And I say this as someone who enjoyed Moana 2 in 2024 more than anticipated.

But I’m afraid if this is what the biggest studios in Hollywood insist on continuing to do, then they deserve the AI takeover that’s threatening – even beckoning – because it’s not artistry. It’s also not human creativity at its finest, when you’re simply recreating the designs and repeating the lines (with only limited variation) of what went before you.

Lilo & Stitch’s live-action remake aggravated me enough for similar reasons last summer, with 23 years elapsing since the original. But unfortunately it had a box office haul of over $1billion (£746.6m) to show for it.

So for Disney, that will have been confirmation that, financially, this new remake was a solid move – plus you can add in Moana 2 also grossing more than $1bn (and around $14m (£10.4m) more than Lilo & Stitch) and Moana being the most streamed movie on Disney Plus.

But creatively, this Moana re-do is so desperately unambitious and uninspired, sticking beat-for-beat in many places to the same jokes and sequences.

They’ve done nothing new with it, save for the scantest of backstories for Maui and more emphasis on the imbalance of nature threatening Moana’s home of Motunui. While reviled by many, at least the 2025 Snow White remake expanded the story and fleshed out its characters, as well as updating a few aspects for an audience nearly 90 years on. I stand by the praise I gave that film for making the most of the time that had passed to do it differently.

Sadly, 2026’s Moana seems laser-focused on profits – of course important, but depressing to be the sole objective from a studio known for risking it all to push the bounds of what was possible artistically in its early days.

It’s also an exercise in pandering to its star, Johnson, who solidified a whole new section of his fanbase with his compelling vocal performance in 2016. But he doesn’t give anything more in human form here – and in fact his poodle-like wig and 40-pound bodysuit only serve as awkward distractions.

Jemaine Clement is also back as the sparkle-obsessed crab Tamatoa for his snazzy song Shiny. And while I’m not made about that – no one else could give that crustacean the same amount of flair – I could also just watch the first film he was in.

Moana’s massive budget – reported to be in the region of $250m (£186.7m) by Variety – also means this money-making operation is actually at risk of tanking, according to tracking of its opening weekend. I’m sure it’s no coincidence then that Johnson confirmed Moana 3 is already in the works during a press conference for this film…

But a live-action Moana just seems an almost insultingly ‘safe’ move right now, at a time when risks in Hollywood are most needed and celebrated. We only need to look at the surprise summer sensations, horror films Backrooms and Obsession, sharing the season with Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of The Odyssey. While Nolan of course has a stellar reputation as a filmmaker, he’s still challenging himself both in terms of his technical expertise (it’s the first film fully shot on IMAX cameras) and artistically. There’s a reason this foundational classic text hasn’t crossed over into cinemas much before, and that’s to do with the scale and imagination required to do justice to Odysseus’s 20-year adventure away from home.

It’s also still very much a make or break time for theatrical releases versus streaming, and this version of Moana does not help the case for cinema showings championing the very best of of movies.

Controversial AI actress Tilly Norwood has just had her first lead role confirmed in the feature film Misaligned, while Val Kilmer is being brought back from the grave in a fully digital rendering for upcoming film As Deep as the Grave. The first fully-generated AI feature-length film Hell Grind held its world premiere in a cinema during the Cannes Film Festival this year too.

Large portions of Hollywood are outraged at all the above. But if the live-action Moana is all that’s produced without AI? Then we deserve no better.

Moana releases (again) in cinemas on Friday, July 10.