Moana      Director: Thomas KailCert: PGStarring: Dwayne Johnson, Catherine Laga'aia, Rena Owen, John Tui, Frankie Adams, Jemaine ClementRunning Time: 1 hr 55 minsThe current run of Disney’s live-action remakes arguably began with Kenneth Branagh’s pleasant Cinderella, in 2015. A full 65 years had then passed between the premiere of the feature animation and its fleshier descendant. Fair enough. Nobody could argue that the audience were not given time to digest the original (if that’s the word).Since then, such reimaginings have taken on the form of an inevitable ritual. If the cartoon works it will eventually be welcomed into what passes for the real world. A few, like Snow White or Pinocchio, are flops. But when they land, they land like a meteorite. Lilo & Stitch made more than $1 billion last year.No surprises, therefore, that Moana has now got the treatment. But so soon? If we are to extend the metaphor of social rituals, the current transfer barely stands comparison with confirmation of bar mitzvah. It is just 10 years since the titular Polynesian princess journeyed forth with Maui the shape-shifting demigod.The film secured the first Oscar nomination – in best original song – for a newly emergent talent called Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Hamilton connection continues with Thomas Kail, director of the show on Broadway, getting behind the camera and Miranda now on production duties.Dwayne Johnson, just a voice in the animation, now appears in full muscle suit as the towering Maui. (Putting a muscle suit on the Rock is rather like handing a megaphone to Brian Blessed.) The Australian charmer Catherine Laga’aia steps up as the heroine. The most hummed of Miranda’s tunes from the first film are back. The plot is largely unchanged. Maui is still the Rock. He still has animated tattoos. Jemaine Clement returns to voice Tamatoa, the giant coconut crab. Hei Hei, the allegedly funny rooster, continues to fall into the sea at every opportunity. The tone remains relentlessly inclusive and ecologically aware.So what is the point? There is no good answer in aesthetic terms. The best of the live-action remakes – notably The Jungle Book, from 2016 – worked imaginative variations in with a loose faithfulness to the earlier plot. Nothing much of any value is added in this lifeless, halfhearted picture. Once again we begin with a mountain of lore that explains how the inhabitants of Motunui find themselves inconvenienced by a supernatural blight that can be reversed only with the assistance of the long-missing Maui.Moana, daughter of the chief, eventually decides – or is selected – to venture “beyond the reef” and bring back the muscular demigod. There is a lot of stuff about magic stones and volcanic demons. You will know all this if you are under 12 or if you live with someone in that generational cohort. Following a strong but not spectacular box office on release, the original flick was identified, in 2024, as the most streamed film on any service in the preceding five years. In the same year, the sequel broke records on its opening weekend.So the current production should be satisfying a need. “If you’re wearing a skirt and have a little animal companion you’re a princess,” Maui tells Moana. Surely that won’t be enough for even the most fervent member of the Disney Princess Tendency. Rather than adding a new dimension, the photorealistic production (perhaps a better term than “live action”) strips the visuals of all painterly charm. The gifted Laga’aia works hard, but there is so little innovation to the script that she ends up in the territory of high-end tribute act. The film doesn’t worry about novel turns. It just walks us through the familiar avenues like a dutiful tour guide.A lazy, lazy work that sullies the good name of “content”.Moana is in cinemas from Friday, July 10th