Moana

Something about this one felt off from the jump, and I spent the whole runtime trying to put my finger on exactly what.

Let me be upfront: I loved the original. Instant classic in my book. So I walked into this one wanting it to work, rooting for it to work, and it just... didn't quite get there.

Like hearing your favorite song covered by a decent band.

Start with the good, because there's real good here. The songs still slap. That hasn't changed and it can't change; those melodies are in the bloodstream now. The story is top notch, which makes sense because they didn't reinvent the wheel. The scenery is genuinely beautiful, and yeah, I know it's CGI, but they made it gorgeous CGI. And casting actual Pacific Islanders? Bravo. Full stop. That's the right call and I'm glad they made it.

Now the bad. The Rock. Look, Maui is his character at this point. He owns it. But something about him in this version looked weird and out of place. He didn't fit, which is a wild thing to say about the guy who literally is the guy. I can't fully explain it. He just felt wrong in the frame.

And the lip sync? Not lined up. Once I noticed it, I couldn't unnotice it, and it kept pulling me out of scenes I was otherwise enjoying. That's the kind of thing that shouldn't be an issue on a movie this big.

That's the whole vibe, honestly. Everything felt weird. Not one giant thing I can point at and say "that's what broke it," but a bunch of small stuff that added up to a version of Moana that felt slightly off-key the whole way through. Like hearing your favorite song covered by a decent band. You recognize it, you can hum along, but it isn't quite hitting the way the original did.

The theater probably helped. Big screen, big sound, big scenery. If I'd watched this at home I think I'd have been even harder on it. And I'll be honest, it stuck with me after, though not always for the right reasons. I keep circling back to what didn't work.

So here's where I land: go see this if you want a little entertainment. Don't go see this if you want a good movie. That's the split. It's fine. Fine is not what I wanted from Moana, but fine is what I got.