Over the Moon - Review

 

With an animation career spanning over 40 decades of work and having worked on some of the greatest animated films of the last half a century, Disney Legend Glen Keane (The Little Mermaid, Dear Basketball) is an obvious choice to direct his own animated features. Mixing his experience with that of screenwriter Audrey Wells (Guinevere, The Hate U Give), Alice Wu (Saving Face, The Half of It), and Jennifer Yee McDevitt (Pittsburgh Passion) to create an animated musical based on the Chinese legend of Chang'e seems like an immediate and surefire success.

There are definitely elements here to praise. The cast does a fabulous job with their material, newcomer Cathy Ang does a great job capturing the science loving teenage angst of Fei Fei, and her reluctant brother Chin is also voiced well by newcomer Robert G. Chiu. The standouts amongst a fairly stacked cast though is Broadway star Phillipa Soo (Hamilton, The One and Only Ivan) who perfectly pulls off the complicated diva persona of Chang’e. From there, the rest of the cast is either used for 15 minutes, like supporting members John Cho (Searching, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle), Margaret Cho (Bright, Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World), Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy, Killing Eve), and Kimiko Glenn (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Orange is the New Black), or worse.

In a genuinely confusing decision, Ken Jeong (Community, Crazy Rich Asians) plays Gobi, a pangolin and former servant of Chang’e. While his performance isn’t bad, it’s the character itself that becomes extremely grating. Gobi is simply the worst of all modern-day Hollywood animation rolled into one. He’s hyperactive, annoying, and then turns on a dime to deliver heartbreaking exposition, as if audience members are being punished for finding him annoying.

Visually, “Moon” explodes with color and visual flair at almost every moment. The team at Sony Pictures Imageworks has absolutely outdone themselves, and while clearly working with a smaller budget than a typical Pixar or DreamWorks film, there’s still a distinct visual style here. Each character seems sculpted out of clay, as if they exist as statues. Lunaria, the Moon city, is an absolute showstopper. With Day-Glo environments that pop and shine like gummies exploding onto the screen, it’s a colorful and memorable world for these characters to explore.

The musical elements aren’t executed as flawlessly as the visuals, but for the most part they’re admirable. Songwriters Christopher Curtis (Chaplin: The Musical, The Man Upon the Wall), Majorite Duffield, and Helen Park (KPOP: The Musical) craft some lovely melodies, and most of the songs are good. Ultraluminary, Chang’e’s introductory song infuses popstar and diva sensibilities into an introductory tune. Mooncakes is also a highlight, seeming as if its was plucked right out of the Disney renaissance.

From there, the songs aren’t bad, just unmemorable. Hey Boy is a rap battle set to a ping pong game that fails to make a lasting impression, and Wonderful is an out of nowhere tear jerker ballad. Again, these songs aren’t bad, they just fail to stick in viewers brains for longer than they’re onscreen.

That isn’t the only thing that fails to make an impression though, as the overall plot of Moon could’ve used some serious work. What exists here is an interesting tale of loss and emotion, with a STEM focused through line and a great sense of sci-fi imagination. However, the way its been presented in the film itself is in quite possibly the most generic and safe way possible.

There’s the “I want” song, the emotional 3^rd act song, the climactic chase with the fake out death, the 1^st act Chekhov’s gun, and the separation of siblings only to be reunited with a greater respect for each other. There are even subplots that are introduced and then forgotten about virtually instantly, like Chin being trapped and a bunny love story. It’s not a flawed story at its core, its just being presented in the most generic way possible, and as these events take place over top of gorgeous environments that look like you could eat them, its easy to think of a more creative and engaging way of telling this story.

Over the Moon is not the worst animated film of the year, not by a long shot. It’s animation and vocal performances are wonderful, most of its songs are great, and its always good to see a more diverse tale being told from such a big studio. However, it might just be the most disappointing animated film of the year, as its easy to see how much better it could’ve been. It’s a film that’s less than the sum of its parts but can still be a colorful and amusing distraction for a weekend stream. At least it isn’t overtly annoying. 3/5