Moana: A Biblical Worldview Movie Review for Families

Also Available on:

Disney's live-action Moana is in theaters, and if your kids want to see it, you're weighing more than the price of a ticket. Is it appropriate for your family? And what will your children actually take away from it? This review covers what's in the film and, more to the point, four biblically grounded questions you can work through with your kids, whether or not you decide to go.

One note before we start: choosing to see a film like this is a matter of conscience, a Romans 14 issue. The goal here isn't to tell you whether to buy tickets. It's to help you use the film, if you do see it, to train your children to think critically and biblically about every idea they encounter. This review includes spoilers, since the point is the conversation, not the suspense.

The four questions we'll work through:

1. How is God as Creator different from Te Fiti?
2. What is a human's relationship to the ocean?
3. What is our identity as humans?
4. Where do we see self-sacrificial love?

What Parents Should Know Before Watching

The plot is almost identical to the animated version. It starts with Te Fiti, the creator of all life. Eventually Maui steals her heart, and without her heart Te Fiti begins to crumble. Moana is the chief's daughter on an island called Motunui, and she's consistently drawn to the ocean, but going beyond the reef is forbidden. Without her father's permission, Moana sets out on a quest to return the heart of Te Fiti. She goes on a grand adventure with Maui, a demigod, and after many struggles she's able to return the heart. With her heart restored, Te Fiti and the islands begin to flourish, and Moana and her people are able to take up their task of voyaging once again to find new islands.

A few things to be aware of if you do choose to engage with this film. The scenes with Te Kā, the lava monster who guards Te Fiti (and who, in the end, you find out is Te Fiti), are a bit intense. If you have young children who are easily scared, you may not want to take them, because those scenes are rather intense.

There are also a few off-color moments. There aren't many; the movie is pretty clean. But, same as in the animated film, there's a moment when Maui tells Moana to stick her hand in the water to test whether it's getting warmer, saying that if it's getting warmer they're headed in the right direction. Moana sticks her hand in, notices it getting warmer, and realizes Maui is peeing. It's a prank he pulls on her. When Moana is giving her little speech to get Maui on her boat, he tells her she sounds like a drunk. And there's another moment where Maui is complaining and says it all sucks. Not major, but a few things to be aware of.

With that context in place, here are the four questions, so your kids can be trained to think critically and biblically through every idea they encounter.

Question 1: How Is God as Creator Different from Te Fiti?

At the beginning of the film, we're told there is nothing but water. Then Te Fiti emerges from the water and begins to create all that is living. So we want to ask our kids: how is God as Creator different from Te Fiti?

One of the main ways God is different is that God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

This is the picture painted consistently throughout Scripture. We're told in the first chapter of Genesis that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is eternal. This is different from Te Fiti, because Te Fiti was not there in the beginning; the movie says that in the beginning there was only water, and then Te Fiti emerged.

Another way God is different is that Te Fiti is essentially defeated once Maui steals her heart. She completely changes into another being, from the goddess and giver of life into a death monster, a lava monster that sucks the life out of everything. She's defeated simply by having her heart taken. But God is omnipotent. He is all-powerful. There is none who can defeat God.

I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2)

A third way we see that God is vastly different from Te Fiti: without her heart, Te Fiti crumbled and turned into Te Kā, the lava monster. But the God of the Bible is immutable. He never changes.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

There are more ways God differs from Te Fiti, but I think these three are important: God is eternal, He is omnipotent, and He is immutable.

Those of you who have taken your children through our Attributes of God curriculum here at Foundation Worldview know that those are three of the incommunicable attributes of God that we directly teach the children. That's one of the things I love about parents taking their kids through our curriculums: their kids are trained to recognize these attributes and to hold up how God is presented in the Bible against every other presentation of God.

Just a week or two ago, a mom wrote in to let us know she had taken her daughter through our Attributes of God curriculum. She said her six-year-old was out in the front yard playing with their next-door neighbors, who are from a Mormon family. The neighbors started to share some of the things they believe as members of the LDS church, and her daughter said, "Well, that's not possible, because God is..." and then shared some of the attributes of God she'd learned directly from Scripture. As a six-year-old, she was able in that moment to recognize that what she was being presented with didn't line up with how God is presented in Scripture. That's exactly what we want for our kids. So if you haven't taken your kids through our Attributes of God curriculum yet, I highly recommend you do.

Question 2: What Is a Human's Relationship to the Ocean?

This is a question you may never have thought of before, but it's really brought up in this film, because the ocean consistently guides and directs Moana. It's almost presented as if the ocean is alive, as if it has a consciousness, almost an omniscience. This is vastly different from what we're presented with in Scripture, and even from what we find in reality. The ocean is not conscious, it's not omniscient, it's not all-knowing as God is.

Biblically, a human's relationship to the ocean is that we are to steward it as part of God's creation, and we are to recognize it as a display of God's power.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

God has charged Adam and Eve, His image bearers, with the responsibility of stewarding all of creation. So a human's relationship to the ocean is to steward it, to make wise decisions regarding it. The ocean also displays God's power. In Jeremiah 31, God is explaining the new covenant He's going to make with His people, the covenant that we as Christians are part of, and He talks about how the oceans display His power.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name: "If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever." (Jeremiah 31:34-36)

It's the Lord who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. We now know the tides come in because of the gravitational pull of the moon, and it's God who sustains that. It's God who has set up the universe so that the oceans roar. God's power is displayed through the fixed nature of the oceans, and He shows the permanence of His covenant. So a human's relationship to the ocean is not only to steward it, but to understand that it displays God's power and reminds us that God's covenant with His people is unchanging.

Question 3: What Is Our Identity as Humans?

In this movie, Maui really has an identity crisis. He has done all these things for humans, but he's realizing that humans don't worship him anymore. Moana comes to a realization and says, "You did everything so we would love you," and Maui says, "Yeah, but it was never enough." Maui feels like he can never do enough or be enough to earn the love of others. In his depressed state, Moana tells him, "You are Maui. The gods didn't make that true. You did." She's encouraging Maui by telling him that he made himself who he is.

So we can ask our kids: is that true for us? Is it true that we make our own identity? And then we can ask, what is our identity as humans? I think there are three truths we need to walk our kids through.

The first is that all humans bear God's image.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

All humans, male and female, bear God's image. That's not something we've chosen, and it's not something we can choose to get rid of.

The second part of our identity is that we are fallen.

Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

All humans bear God's image, yet all humans are fallen. We're separated from God because of our sin.

The third part is a possible part of anyone's identity, but it is not everyone's identity: those who are Christians, who have been regenerated and made alive in Christ, are redeemed sons and daughters of God. Those who have turned from their sin and trusted in Christ are redeemed.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

We want to help our kids see these three parts of identity: all humans bear God's image, all humans are fallen, and salvation is open to all, though not all are saved. This is the bedrock of our identity, what was not chosen and what cannot be lost.

Within those three things, God has given us a lot of freedom. We have the freedom to choose what we eat, where we live, how we spend our time, who we marry, and what we do vocationally. But our core identity as male and female image bearers who are fallen and able to be redeemed through Jesus is fixed. That core identity is not something we make for ourselves.

Those of you who have taken your kids through our Comparative Worldview curriculum here at Foundation Worldview know that we have a whole unit exploring the question, "What does it mean to be human?" We're releasing this podcast around July 10, 2026, and just last week we launched a complete overhaul of the Comparative Worldview curriculum. One of the activities in that unit has kids watch the clip from the animated version of Moana, "Song of the Ancestors," and evaluate the lyrics: what view of humans is presented in the song? Is it the Christian view? The atheistic, materialistic, naturalist worldview? The Eastern new spirituality worldview? Postmodernism? Islam? We have them identify what worldview beliefs are present.

If you're interested in taking your children through that curriculum, I highly recommend it. I'm so excited to finally get to equip kids with these new materials. And for a limited time, if you're interested in one of our family licenses, you can use the coupon code MOANA to get $10 off any family license.

Question 4: Where Do We See Self-Sacrificial Love?

Those who are faithful Foundation Worldview podcast listeners will already know this question. In almost every movie, we see at least one character willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, and we see it twice here.

First, toward the end of the film, Maui is willing to give up his hook, which he believes is the source of his identity. He gives it up to save Moana from Te Kā and to help her return the heart of Te Fiti. And throughout the film, we see self-sacrificial love in Moana as well. She's willing to risk her own good to return the heart and bring health to her people. Every time Maui tries to get her to turn back, or she becomes discouraged, she keeps saying, "But my people, my people need this."

So we can ask our kids: why is it that in almost every movie, one of the main themes is a character sacrificing himself or herself for another? It's because it's a mirror of the greatest story ever told, and that story is a true one: the story of Christ laying down His life for His bride, the Church. In almost every good story, there is a shadow of that true story.

Keep Training Your Kids to Think Biblically

My prayer for you is that, no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care find yourselves, you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son.

If a film like Moana can open the door to four rich conversations about God, identity, and self-sacrifice, imagine what a full worldview training can do. Our newly overhauled Comparative Worldview curriculum walks families through the very question at the heart of this film, "What does it mean to be human?", and trains kids to identify the worldview beliefs hiding inside the stories they love. You can find it in our shop, and for a limited time you can use the code MOANA for $10 off any family license.