In order to save her island from destruction, future chief Moana teams up with demigod Maui to voyage across the ocean and restore the stolen heart of the goddess Te Fiti. Thumping danger, scary monsters and Polynesian-inspired spirituality imbue this film. But the story inspires viewers to be brave, kind and selfless.
Moana isn’t quite sure who she is.
As the daughter of the village chief, she knows that it’s her duty to one day become chief herself and lead the people of Motunui.
But there’s a voice inside her that says different: It calls her to the ocean.
You wouldn’t think that’d be a problem, given that Motunui is located on an island. But Moana’s father, Chief Tui, warns her to never go beyond the barrier reef: The ocean is an unforgiving place, full of monsters and foul weather.
That’s because a thousand years ago, the demigod Maui stole the heart of the goddess Te Fiti, the Mother Island who created all life. Stealing the heart triggered a series of events, unleashing the lava demon Te Kā and spreading darkness and evil throughout the world.
Moana’s been told that as long as she and her people stay on their island, they’ll be safe. The island provides all they need.
Until it doesn’t.
The consequences of Te Fiti’s lost heart has finally reached Motunui. The fish have left the lagoon surrounding the island. The coconut groves are growing sick. The island itself is dying.
Moana believes the only way to save her people is to do exactly what her father has warned against: She must leave her island home, voyage across the ocean and convince Maui to return the heart that he stole.
And she knows exactly what she’ll say when she finds him: “I am Moana of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea and restore the heart of Te Fiti.”
That’ll work, right?
Moana is selfless, kind and brave—all qualities certainly imbued in her by her parents, who are similarly selfless, kind and brave. It’s these qualities that, eventually, win Maui over.
Maui himself is incredibly conceited and selfish—at least, initially: Moana’s good qualities (and flat-out stubbornness) prove to be very influential. Moana reminds Maui that he wasn’t always considered a thief and a trickster. Moana helps him remember when people considered him to be a hero: He wants to be a hero again, and so he humbles himself and risks his life to help Moana and save the world.
At a critical point in the film, Moana and Maui both want to give up—indeed, Maui abandons Moana—but they’re both reminded that this isn’t who they are: They’re heroes, not because they were chosen to be so, but because they choose to be so. And heroes do whatever it takes to save others.
Moana’s voyage begins on a somewhat sour note: When she sets out to journey beyond the reef, it’s against her father’s wishes. He believes that Moana wants to sail across the ocean to satisfy her own curiosity, not to save her people. (And admittedly, it’s a bit of both for Moana.) But when things become more dire, Moana’s mother gives Moana her blessing: She explains that Chief Tui is simply scared and trying to protect Moana from harm. And when Moana returns, both of her parents tell her how proud they are of her.
Moana’s grandma is her best encourager. She tells Moana to follow the voice inside her, to discover who she is. (She also tells Moana to mind her father, knowing that Chief Tui is only acting to protect his daughter and their village.)
The people in Moana’s village are kind. They share everything they have, working together for the benefit of all. As a little girl, Moana rescues a baby turtle from some hungry birds, shooing the birds away as the turtle makes its way to the ocean.
Polynesian mythology inspires much of the magic and spirituality we see here.
The film begins with, “In the beginning,” going on to say that the world was nothing but ocean until the goddess Te Fiti, the Mother Island, created life. And we see Te Fiti bring land and vegetation into existence.
Then the story shifts, explaining that the demigod Maui stole Te Fiti’s heart, unleashing a powerful darkness and evil across the land. The lava demon Te Kā, as well as many other monsters, arose, turning the ocean into a dangerous and untraversable realm.
That darkness spreads like tentacles from Te Fiti’s island to all others, eventually making its way to Moana’s home of Motunui. It kills all vegetation on the island, and Moana sees visions of how the island will be destroyed in swirling darkness if she fails on her mission.
Moana has other visions throughout the film, too. Early on, her grandmother takes her to a hidden cavern, instructing her to beat on some ancient drums and wait to receive answers to her questions. Moana does as she’s told, and torches around the cavern suddenly light on their own. She then sees visions of her ancestors’ early origins. Later in the film, she sees them once again as ghostly apparitions who encourage her.
A woman boldly states that when she dies, she plans to become a manta ray. When she passes, her spirit indeed soars into the ocean, where it takes the form of a glowing manta ray.
The ocean acts as a sort of sentient being in and of itself—and Moana sometimes addresses it almost as if in prayer or supplication. When Moana falls off her boat, it lifts her back up. When Maui misbehaves, it splashes him with water. At one point, Moana asks the ocean to create a path, and the water splits in two, reminiscent of when Moses parted the Red Sea. We see Moana as a little girl, when the ocean delivers the heart of Te Fiti to her. Later on, Moana and her grandmother speculate that this was the ocean’s way of “choosing” her to restore the heart.
Maui, we learn, wasn’t born a demigod. He had human parents, he says, who abandoned him and threw him into the ocean. He survived, and when the gods found him, they gave him a magical fishhook that granted him powers over the wind and sea. Throughout the film, he uses the hook to shape-shift into various animals. Maui also has many tattoos which appear when he accomplishes great deeds. One of the tattoos is a miniature version of himself, who sometimes pokes him and tries to advise him through gestures.
Maui talks about how humans used to worship him—and he occasionally suggests that Moana should worship him, even threatening to “smite” her if she doesn’t. A song lyric references praying to him. [Spoiler warning] Maui eventually stops yearning to be worshipped, instead taking on the humbler attitude of a servant.
Chief Tui takes Moana to a “sacred” place on their island where every former chief of their village has laid a stone to make their mark.
Maui and the men of Moana’s village do not wear shirts. Maui likes to flex and flaunt his muscles, and he references his good looks more than once. The camera sometimes focuses on Maui’s chest as a mini tattoo of himself hops around. At one point, Maui flicks the little guy, sending him down to his grass skirt-covered rear end. Elsewhere, Maui loudly complains that he’s been shot in the “butt cheek” with a blow dart.
Moana and the women of her village wear tops that don’t cover their shoulders. Moana’s shirt also shows a bit of her belly button.
Moana is filled with plenty of thumping danger. Many characters nearly drown, including Moana herself. Early on, after a big wave capsizes her boat, she gets trapped beneath the waves by a rope wrapped around her ankle. She eventually frees herself, but it’s a close call. When she walks ashore later, her ankle is bruised and badly rope-burned.
During a fearsome storm, Moana’s boat flips over, and she’s only saved because the ocean delivers her to a nearby island. A flashback to a similar storm shows two men battling the waves. And we learn that one of the men drowned.
Tiny pirates called Kakamora besiege Moana and Maui. Although they’re cute (they each fit inside a single coconut, which acts as a sort of body armor/mask), they’re dangerous, throwing spears and blowing paralyzing darts at the heroes. (A few of those darts inadvertently hit their own people.) Moana uses an oar to battle her way through the Kakamora to retrieve Te Fiti’s heart, aiming a few kicks at the ball-sized scavengers along the way.
Te Kā throws fireballs at Moana and Maui when they try to restore Te Fiti’s heart. A few of those balls land, capsizing their boat. But Te Kā is unable to touch the water, which douses its flaming body.
Characters get thrown and knocked around quite a bit. A giant crab monster tries to eat both Maui and Moana. The crab gloats that he ate his own grandmother (whether she was alive at the time is unclear). Maui admits he ripped off one of the crab’s legs back when he was powerful. Moana has a pet chicken named Heihei who is incredibly accident prone but somehow never gets injured. Maui repeatedly makes jokes about eating Heihei. Maui also occasionally gets melancholy, talking about the inevitability of death.
There are jokes about human sacrifice and suicide. When Maui throws the heart of Te Fiti into the ocean, the ocean throws it back, hitting him squarely between the eyes.
Strictly speaking, none. However, in anger, Moana starts to call Maui a “son of a —,” but the camera quickly cuts to Maui in another location, who says, “beach.”
We hear the terms “sucks,” “hiney” and “bupkis.”
None.
Moana’s grandmother is feisty, sometimes keeping information from her son, Chief Tui, to further her own ends. She eventually passes away peacefully.
We learn Maui was abandoned by his human parents. Everything he has done since then has been an attempt to earn the love of humans.
We see some shirtless guys getting tattoos. Many people in Moana’s village have tattoos, a part of their culture.
Two gags deal with urinating in the ocean.
When the animated Moana hit theaters on Thanksgiving in 2016, it immediately became a commercial success, earning $82 million over the five-day weekend. It went on to gross $643 million globally. And according to The Wall Street Journal, in 2024, it became the No. 1 most-streamed movie of all time, viewed more than 1 billion hours.
With success like that, it’s perhaps no surprise that Disney wanted to capitalize with a live-action adaptation.
But this reimagining, outside moving from animation to live-action, is hardly a reimagining at all. Created just 10 years after the original, is basically just a shot-for-shot remake.
On the plus side, that means audiences still get a great story that lauds bravery, kindness and selflessness. The characters are endearing, and the jokes are mostly funny.
On the downside, viewers won’t get anything new out of the story—and the live-action rendering of some aspects, such as Maui’s muscley chest or Te Kā’s molten visage, may actually make it more difficult for families to navigate.
Moreover, there’s a lot of Polynesian-inspired mythology and spirituality here, including the concept of reincarnation and the worship of other gods. That same inspiration is reflected in costumes, with most of the men walking around in cultural grass skirts and most of the women baring their shoulders. Characters nearly drown on several occasions. Monsters can be much more frightening. And there’s one near-use of a profane word.
Expert wayfinders like Moana won’t find those waves too turbulent, but some parents may still want to stay out of the water—or at least strap some floaties on their littles before journeying to the theater.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
