Disney has once again taken one of its biggest animated hits of recent years and turned it into a live-action remake - but the new take on 2016's Moana has been panned by most critics.
Dwayne Johnson reprises his role as demigod Maui, with 19-year-old Australian-Samoan newcomer Catherine Laga'aia playing Moana, the teen daughter of a Polynesian chief.
However, the movie, which was released on Friday, has been described in reviews as "flat", "dull" and "dismal".
There were some more positive voices, including Variety's Owen Gleiberman , external , who said it "escapes the remake blues - in fact it soars above them".
Gleiberman added that the film "truly delivers 'Moana' - the beauty, the comic personality, the fairy-tale enchantment", and described Johnson's "fit" for the film as "perfect".
Peter Bradshaw disagreed in The Guardian , external , calling the film a "competent but pointless and unexciting back-to-basics live-action remake" in his two-star review.
He said Johnson's performance was "on autopilot, like a piece of software" and criticised the use of CGI, which he said was "so deeply embedded" it feels like "another animation".
Bradshaw ended his review by saying it "feels like a superfluous piece of monetisable content".
The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey , external called Moana "a waste of everyone's time and talent" in her one-star review.
"Is the situation really so dire that we'll now accept Dwayne Johnson repeating the exact same voice performance he gave a decade ago?" she wrote.
She also criticised the animated feel of the movie, writing: "Supposedly, some scenes were shot on location in Hawaii and not in a studio in Atlanta - I couldn't tell you which."
Empire's John Nugent , external said Johnson's character "feels like an AI interpretation", and to call the film "live action feels like a misnomer" because of the heavy use of animation.
His two-star review said the remake feels "so pointless" when the original film was "a fun, funny, poignant coming-of-age yarn with fantastic music and a winning Polynesian spin on the Disney Princess template".
Kevin Maher from The Times , external said 54-year-old Johnson was "three decades too old to play Maui", with "his performance oddly lacklustre and restrained".
Maher, in his one-star review, also described the film as "a lazy cash grab for shareholders".
"This live-action remake takes everything that was sprightly, expansive and ambitious [from the original] and makes it leaden, limited and dull," he wrote.
'Could have been AI'
The Telegraph's Robbie Collin , external was also not a fan - writing that it "could have been made by a ChatGPT prompt".
Giving the film two stars, he said there "is barely a moment in it which feels as if it couldn't have been achieved by typing: 'What if this scene from Moana was remade in live action?' into a prompt box".
Positive reviews were relatively rare, but there was one from the Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney , external , who described it as "captivating family entertainment that deserves to find an audience - brimming with visual interest, vibrant color, gorgeous design elements and alluring tropical settings".
The script has been adapted by the original screenwriter Jared Bush, with the music from Lin-Manuel Miranda remaining too while Hamilton stage director Thomas Kail makes his film debut.
In the past 15 years there have been more than 20 live-action remakes of Disney classics - with varying levels of success.
In 2023, The Little Mermaid was not a box office hit, but the corporation bounced back in 2024 with Mufasa: The Lion King.
Then last year Disney lost $170m with its Snow White live-action remake, but quickly recouped costs a couple of months later when live-action Lilo & Stitch became one of the biggest films of the year, making $1bn.
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