Disney remaking its animated classics as live-action movies has become as much a certainty as death and taxes. It’s a big blue Will Smith genie we just can’t put back in the bottle.
It’s time to resign ourselves to this fact: Hope for the occasional cool origin-story prequel (“Cruella”) or well-done retelling (“Cinderella”), and be OK when it’s something that turns out aggressively fine (“The Little Mermaid”). Just as long as it isn’t completely unnecessary and the new version, fingers crossed, kinda-sorta justifies its existence.
The new “Moana” misses that mark wildly, with a little coconut dude shooting blow darts.