Moana Early Rotten Tomato Critical Scores Are Not Great
Disney’s live-action “Moana” is already taking a beating with the early critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but the biggest complaint seems to be that the film is another Disney remake that stays too close to the original source material.
“Moana” as a live-action remake was already facing an uphill battle as fans grew more weary of the live-action remakes. Throw in that the original animated masterpiece isn’t even ten years old yet, and it’s a recipe for middling reviews.
Finally, the review embargo is up, and critics are weighing in on the film. While “Variety” said it was the best live-action film so far, others are not so convinced.
Most of the reviews have wonderful things to say about the titular actress Catherine Laga’aia, but they feel it’s too close to the original animated film.
Right now, Rotten Tomatoes has it sitting at 34% with 44 reviews.
Of course, this will likely change as more reviews are added.
Here are some of the reviews,
“4/10- Moana is further proof that Disney will continue to make banal recreations of their films that will never be better than the originals, and are ironically stopping them from creating anything fresh.” - Fandom Wire
“71/100- Virtually every line, beat, and song in the new movie is identical to the 2016 version, apart from a few minor punch-ups or extra comedy tags here and there. There’s no artistic or aesthetic reason for this movie to exist.”- Polygon
“As creatively empty as any film in the modern Disney canon.”- The Daily Beast
“1.5/4 -All inventiveness has gone out to sea.” -AP
“2.5/4- Johnson understands Maui, so his performance is good once you get past the initial shock of his unusual appearance. He has great chemistry with Laga’aia. But the best performance in “Moana” comes from Rena Owen as Moana’s grandmother Gramma Tala.” - The Boston Globe
“ C - Otherwise, Kail sticks closely to the template established for him, recreating every scene and sequence from the first movie with ruthless fidelity and adding essentially no departures of any significance.” - Indie Wire
“D+ - “A game cast tries hard to make this their own, but in a landscape where Moana 2 barely registered on the pop culture scale, this live-action remake of the story only reminds audiences why the original should have stayed one and done.” - The Film Maven
“The live-action Moana is simply spectacle that’s indistinguishable for any other generic spectacle out there — it’s peak Disney déjà vu.” - Rolling Stone
“3.5/5 - Like with How To Train Your Dragon remake, the live-action Moana is essentially a faithful cover of a classic song. It’s good for all the reasons the original song is good.” - Nerdist
“3/4- It may not deliver anything new, but Maui and Moana are two of Disney’s most appealing characters; this version retells their story with sincerity, humor, and songs that remain among the all-time bangers.” RogerEbert.com
“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.” - Variety
“Producing slower and uglier versions of movies we’ve already seen is solidifying as Disney’s core business, and if Moana still manages to be disappointing, it’s because the source material is just that good.” - AV Club
Overall, it seems that the live-action film can’t compete with or beat the original.
My rule of thumb is to wait for the Audience Scores to come in and gauge that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I think people wish Disney would stop repurposing hit films and go back to creating new winning movies in the first place.