There is a lovely story in here, and I love the culture behind it. I hope it’s been represented as accurately as Disney can manage because that’s easily one of the film’s strongest qualities.

But I just kept asking myself one question.

Why does this exist?

God, Moana is slow. The first forty minutes feel like they’re spend repeating the same handful of ideas and pointing out the obvious. Every emotion is explained. Every plot point is announced. Every lesson is repeated. At one point I found myself thinking, “Show me. Stop telling me.”

Family films don’t need to speak down to their audience. Children aren’t stupid. They can follow visual storytelling without every emotion and motivation being explained to them.

The biggest problem is that there’s never really a reason to care. Even when the danger is heightened, it never feels earned. Destiny isn’t an earned reward just because the script keeps telling us it is.

Maui never really worked for me either. He spends so much of the film being an obnoxious arsehole that, by the time his inevitable heroic moment arrives, I couldn’t help wishing the film had the confidence to let him face the consequences of being exactly that.

Visually, this hardly feels like a live-action remake at all. There is so much CGI that Disney has effectively remade an animated film using… another form of animation. I appreciate the practical challenges of bringing this world to life, but it never looks good enough to justify itself.

That’s not to say everything misses. Hei Hei is still ridiculous. Te Fiti genuinely looks beautiful. There are moments that remind you why the original became so beloved. The grandmother remains the emotional heart of the story, even if the remake never gave me enough reason to become emotionally invested.

I appreciate what this film is trying to do, but it isn’t funny enough to sustain itself as a family adventure. It takes itself far too seriously, doesn’t look good enough to demand sustained attention on the big screen and, ultimately, I just don’t think what was already a lovely animated film needed this treatment.