‘ Over the Moon’ beautiful, but not out of this world
There’s a lot of bigname talent behind Netflix’s cartoon feature “Over the Moon,” which begins streaming Friday, Oct. 23.
For instance, there’s Glen Keane, the legendary Disney animator of “The Little Mermaid” and the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” who won an Oscar for his Kobe Bryant short “Dear Basketball” and makes his fulllength directing debut with this colorful take on a Chinese legend. And there’s the late San Franciscan screenwriter Audrey Wells, to whom the film is rightfully dedicated.
“Over the Moon” also has an impressive, allAsian heritage voice cast: Ken Jeong, Sandra Oh, John Cho and San Francisco native Margaret Cho are a few of the supporting players.
Needless to say, the film is often gorgeous, in both its own ways and its aesthetic nods to Georges Melies’ 1902 “A Trip to the Moon,” anime, video game kinetics and Asian ghost girl movies. There’s even a smidge of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
But it’s also kind of a mess. Even as the animated film piles on mismatched funny animals, uninspired songs with onthenose lyrics and a plotdriving motivation that appears universal but is in fact hard to buy, the project feels both generic and misguidedly overstuffed.
Young heroine Fei Fei ( voiced by Cathy Ang) loves nothing more than listening to Mother ( Ruthie Ann Miles) tell the story of Chang’e, the moon goddess who gained immortality but lost her lover in the process, by the canal in their picturesque town. Fei Fei also loves working in the family’s mooncake bakery; tantalizing food imagery is another one of the film’s visual triumphs.
Four years after Mother succumbs to cartoon parents disease, Father ( Cho) introduces his daughter to the very nice Mrs. Zhong ( Oh) and her annoying little boy, Chin ( Robert G. Chiu). Worried that he’s forgotten Mom, Fei Fei builds a spaceship to go the moon, prove Chang’e really exists and thereby convince Father not to remarry ... or something.
We’re told Fei Fei gets good grades, but this is a smart girl’s logic? Well, she’s at least half right. With stowaway Chin and some anthropomorphic critter pals, Fei Fei makes it to the orbiting city of the Ozlike Lunaria, where a giant Chang’e rules over winged lions, talking moon cakes and throngs of pastelcolored gumdrop people.
Phillipa Soo (“Hamilton”) provides the moon goddess’ voice, a character who comes off like a Kpop diva with Rihanna aspirations ( virtually; Chang’e’s elaborate, traditional Chineseinspired costumes were designed by Guo Pei, who made RiRi’s getup for the 2015 Met Gala). Quests and more obnoxious creatures and instructional songs ensue. Of course, lessons on how to process love and loss are learned.
Complaints registered, “Over the Moon” is nonetheless lovely in a wide variety of ways. It laudably strives to work many new elements into feature animation. Strange, then, how so much of it seems like someplace we’ve been to many times before.