Review: The titanically misguided live-action remake of 'Moana' is missing the heart in its ocean

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Set us as preferred You know a movie is adrift when you spend the running time admiring the grooming.As in the animated 2016 “Moana,” a Polynesian teenager (Catherine Laga’aia) sets sail to save her starving people by returning a heart stone to an island spirit.

The plucky girl goes off into the breach with a cocky demigod named Maui (Dwayne Johnson) in a catamaran that continually pitches them into the waves, soaking them both so often that the hair and costume teams do an impressive job calibrating whether each scene’s look should be drenched, damp or sun-baked.Yes, the most riveting thing about director Thomas Kail’s live-action “Moana” is watching painted cloth dry.Every one of Disney’s remakes and spin-offs of its animated hits has been a naked cash grab.

None have measured up to their source material, although Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music in the 2024 prequel “Mufasa: The Lion King” contributed the best ditties to the studio’s songbook in decades.Miranda writes another good track here but holds it back for the closing credits as it’s fan service that doesn’t fit into the plot.In case you don’t make it to the end, “Along the Way” is a duet between Laga’aia’s sunny new Moana and her predecessor, Auli’i Cravalho, who voiced the original character.

Their harmonies intertwine like two gulls in flight.Underneath, Johnson spits guttural injections like he’s auditioning for the Atlanta rap group Migos.

It’s odd and discordant with a strange magic all its own — a blessing in what’s otherwise a lame remix.Hollywood Inc.

Ten years ago, Disney released its animated “Moana” to box office success.Can a new live-action remake revive the film’s popularity? The futile paradox of these so-called live-action adaptations is they require a tsunami of pixels to surround actual human performers with everything audiences adored the first time.

The results are wonky.Wacky a...