This may actually be too complex for children, but they sure enjoy it!

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2017)

Moana is the story of a teenage girl living in Oceanic dreamtime who, on the advice of her grandmother, runs away from home, takes up with a strange mostly-naked man, and drops a rock down a volcano.
Moana is also the story of a teenage girl living in Oceanic dreamtime who discovers women's power in response to men's fear. A male thief greedily and thoughtlessly steals a token of female power and thus begins the destruction of the world. A young woman, with the support of feminine archetypes, restores the power of creation to the female breast where it belongs.
There is no princess, though the heroine is the daughter of a chief. There is no romance; the male lead is a trickster whose self-interest supersedes all. The eerily intelligent animal sidekicks are relegated to the background, and there is even a self-aware joke on how we eat our animal friends.
It's a form of the Hero's Journey, of course, but there is also a complex discussion of personal and group identity, responsibility to one's community versus one's responsibility to oneself, and the ethical ramifications of following one's {dreams|heart|goals|responsibilities} through, even when they conflict with the goals or needs of the group or the other. It starts with the heroine being told who she is, and where she is, and where she belongs, that there is no appeal, and there is no other option. Interestingly, as she initially accepts her manufactured identity and role in the community, that very acceptance requires that she reject her community's definition of who she is to go on the Hero's Journey, discover who she *really* is, proclaim it to the world, and take action based on that true identity. She can thus uncover the true needs of both her gods and her community, successfully fulfill those needs, and help them integrate their new true identities with their previous image of Who We Are.
This is no boilerplate Disney spectacle; this is a story based on Tahitian and Maori mythology. There is bad; a fair amount of probably accidental racism that could have been avoided with better cultural advisers, and an incorrect presentation of the trickster deity's physical appearance that perpetuates a generally false image of weight and bulk in Oceanic males (though the actual lithe teenage boy appearance from myth would open a whole new can of worms, stuck out in the ocean with the lithe teenage girl as they were). But the good far outweighs the bad, and the voyager sequence alone is worth the price of admission.
Plus, the way Maui, Shapeshifter, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero of Men (and Women) screams when he sees that little girl for the first time is pretty funny. And you have to picture Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson doing the "You're Welcome" song and dance, because that's also pretty funny. And there are two pee jokes.
If you must watch one movie a thousand times because you have children, this is a good one to choose.