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While The Odyssey dropped its social media embargo<\/a> for early critic impressions nearly two weeks before release, Moana waited until the very last minute to do the same, stacking actual, full reviews the very same day. We are exactly one day before release, and those scored reviews are live. Going through many of them, it\u2019s easy to see why Disney might have waited, given its horrific Rotten Tomatoes score.<\/p>\n At a 32 % Rotten Tomatoes critic review score<\/a>, the live-action Moana remake is on the worst score ever out of of the growing amount of live-action animation adaptations that Disney has done, often pulling in huge profits, answering the \u201cwhy\u201d of why they\u2019re bothering to remake so many classics. That is a big criticism about this version of Moana, that it is often a shot-by-shot, line-by-line remake of the original, so why should it have been made at all? \u201cMoney\u201d is not usually a reason critics will consider when giving it a score.<\/p>\n I do find it interesting that the How to Train Your Dragon live-action film was similar, reusing some of the voice cast (like Dwayne Johnson here) in their former roles, the film again being an extremely close visual and script clone of the first movie. And that got a 78% critic score and a 97% audience score. I suppose it\u2019s possible we see a high-end audience score like that for Moana too, but these reviews are so mixed that it would be a little surprising.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the \u201cdistance\u201d factor here. The original Moana was only released 10 years ago, much more recently than some of the other films being remade in live action. Almost all of them, in fact. Then, Moana 2 was just released in November 2024, not even two years ago. It seems\u2026ill-advised to reproduce these characters so quickly.<\/p>\n Praises include the performance of new Moana, Catherine Laga\u2019aia, though at the cost of outshining The Rock, where, despite the fact that he\u2019s reprising his Maui role, it doesn\u2019t work nearly as well onscreen with him and his silly wig. There are also often complaints about the visuals of the film, greenscreen flatness as opposed to the rich world of the animated original.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Moana stacks up against the other Disney live-action remakes:<\/p>\n The Jungle Book (2016) \u2013 94% critic score, 86% audience scoreCinderella (2015) \u2013 83% critic score, 78% audience scoreCruella (2021) \u2013 75% critic score, 97% audience scoreLilo and Stitch (2025) \u2013 72% critic score, 91% audience scoreMulan (2020) \u2013 72% critic score, 47% audience scoreBeauty and the Beast (2017) \u2013 71% critic score, 80% audience scoreThe Little Mermaid (2023) \u2013 67% critic score, 93% audience scoreAladdin (2019) \u2013 57% critic score, 94% audience scoreThe Lion King (2019) \u2013 52% critic score, 88% audience scoreAlice in Wonderland (2010) \u2013 51% critic score, 55% audience scoreDumbo (2019) \u2013 45% critic score, 48% audience scoreMaleficent (2019) \u2013 39% critic score, 95% audience scoreMoana (2026) – 32% critic score, N\/A audience score<\/p>\n And here is a sampling of what critics are saying about the film:<\/p>\n Mashable<\/a> \u2013 \u201cIt evoked in me a similar reaction to AI slop, where I cringe at the unnerving blend of the familiar and the not-quite-right.\u201dIndependent UK<\/a> \u2013 \u201cDwayne Johnson\u2019s terrible wig is just one low point of a film that has all the visual allure of a Febreze advert.\u201dConsequence <\/a>\u2013 \u201cMaui\u2019s nipples aside, Moana contains no nightmare fuel on the level of 2025\u2019s Snow White \u2014 which ends up being high praise for adaptations like these.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m sorry, what about Maui\u2019s nipples? In any case, they\u2019re not going to be putting any of those on the poster, that\u2019s for sure. But now we wait and see whether audiences care and just how many hundreds of millions this might make.<\/p>\n Follow me on Twitter<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>,<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series<\/a> and The Earthborn Trilogy<\/a>.<\/p>\n