Moana

With Lilo and Stitch last year and Snow White the year before, Disney has certainly amped up the live-action remakes lately. But while the former was rebooted two decades after its release and the latter is a near 90-year-old classic, Moana is a relatively recent offering, so its reboot may seem premature. But with Hamilton alumnus Thomas Kail bringing dazzlingly immersive theatrics into the feature, it’s a worthy addition to the Disney remake canon.

The animated film was praised as a positive example of Polynesian representation, having been overlooked by the mainstream for so long. Polynesian culture is again at the forefront of the reboot, with newcomer Catherine Laga’aia perfectly personifying the beloved title character. The daughter of a village chief, Moana is at one with the ocean, which aids her on a quest to bring peace to her community by returning “the heart of Te Fiti”, a luminous jade stone that was once stolen by demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson, reprising his role in the original).

She and Maui head on the fateful journey together, against majestic oceanic visuals and stirring musical interludes. While Laga’aia is wonderfully understated, Johnson is clearly having a blast with his role, injecting it with the wink-and-a-nod charisma that secured his superstardom all those years ago in the WWE.

As with the original, it carries a feminist message. Moana is aghast when Maui assumes she’s a princess because “you wear a dress and you have an animal sidekick”, one of several meta moments. Others include Maui resembling The Rock, namely through his illeism and references to an intangible smell in his presence, recalling Johnson’s iconic “Can you smell…?” WWE mantra.

But Moana may leave you wondering why Disney decided to touch such a beloved modern classic so soon. Admittedly, it lifts the source material rather than reinterpreting it. The main selling point is seeing the musical numbers come to life, and given his theatre background, Kail is more than proficient at unleashing them in all their glory (while giving Laga’aia the opportunity to demonstrate her impressive pipes).

The debate around live-action reboots aside, Moana is, if nothing else, beautiful to look at, and its commitment to glittering ocean sequences proves the Disney magic of the classics is still alive. And in her first role, Laga’aia is undoubtedly a screen – and, very likely, stage – presence to watch out for in the coming years.