I've been keeping an eye on the efforts of the Chinese animation industry for a while now, which has progressed by leaps and bounds over the last decade. One of the most promising new ventures is Pearl Studio, which is a sort-of successor to Oriental DreamWorks. Their goal is specifically to produce animation aimed at Chinese audiences, at a level of quality on par with the big U.S. studios. "Over the Moon" is their second feature after 2019's "Abominable." It's also the feature directing debut of former Disney Renaissance animator Glen Keane. And I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one.
Fei-Fei (Cathy Ang) is a little girl who loves the story of the Moon Goddess Chang-e (Philippa Soo). Sadly her mother (Ruthie Ann Miles) falls ill and passes away. Four years later, her father (John Cho) intends to marry Mrs. Zhong (Sandra Oh), the mother of a rambunctious boy named Chin (Robert G Chiu), to Fei-Fei's horror. She decides to build a rocketship to go to the moon to find Chang-e. She does not reckon on Chin sneaking along on the adventure with her, or Chang-e being very different from what she imagined. Also, Ken Jeong voices a fluorescent green moon pangolin named Gobi, because why not?
I always thought that the autumn moon festival would be good subject matter for an animated film, because it's got a lot of fun elements - the Chinese legend of Chang-e, her companion the Jade Rabbit, and of course all the fuss around mooncakes. I was not, however, pleased to find that "Over the Moon" goes the route of mashing all these ideas into a very familiar template - the '90s Disney musical. Okay, that's not fair. The film does make a good attempt to try and wrestle with Fei-Fei's feelings of grief and uncertainty about her family and future, painting a picture of complicated family dynamics similar to PIXAR's "Coco." Unfortunately, the story keeps getting tripped up by all the usual trappings of a typical Western animated kids' film - animal sidekicks, busy action scenes, and a whopping nine song numbers.
This in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if the execution weren't so lackluster. Similar to the new live-action version of "Mulan," it's very apparent that the chief creative forces here were Westerners doing their very best to work with Eastern concepts that they didn't have much firsthand knowledge of. There are no obvious errors, but tonally the film always feels a little too self-conscious and hemmed-in, lacking in verve. The animation is gorgeous, but is noticeably subdued at times. Part of the issue with having so many song numbers is that only two of them are properly paired with interesting animation. Several simply involve the characters singing to each other or into empty space. While there are some strong sequences, like the hand-drawn segments telling the story of Chang-e, the film often struggles to give us interesting things to look at. Character designs are derivative and uninspired. Fei-Fei in particular seems to be a gawky mishmash of the "science girl" trope and previous characters from "Abominable."
I kept finding myself asking uncomfortable questions. Fei-Fei and Chin both have animal sidekicks that don't talk, probably because talking animals are frowned upon by the Chinese censors. Chang-e's animal companion, the Jade Rabbit, doesn't talk either, despite clearly being a magical moon creature. But Ken Jeong's neon pangolin shows up around midway through the picture seemingly just to be chattery comic relief, which is apparently just fine. Were the pangolin and the Jade Rabbit originally the same character? Is it really that important to have a Disney-style comic character like this in the film? Then again, the film's best creation is easily the little brother, Chin, who is one of those super-enthusiastic, super-optimistic, rough-and tumble kids who never gets discouraged, and is a valuable source of humor. Without him and the pangolin, "Over the Moon" would be a pretty glum affair.
And then there's the whole business of Chang-e pining for her lost love while acting as the mercurial ruler (and pop star) for the moon kingdom of Luminaria. You can see the parallels that the filmmakers were going for, trying to compare Fei-Fei and Chang-e's situations, but the pacing is so rushed, the stakes are so muddled, and the characters are so thinly drawn, it's hard to get invested in what's going on. Luminaria is in peril! Because Chang-e is sad! Oh no, I guess? I can applaud the ambition here, but I can't ignore that the film is plagued with story problems and half-baked concepts that really undercut its effectiveness.
A lot of this feels like nitpicking, but I was really rooting for this film, and I wanted it to be good. It has so much talent involved that I've been keeping tabs on, and so many bits and pieces of things I'm so happy to see in a major animated film. To its credit, "Over the Moon" does not feel like a cheap imitation the way so many of these other Chinese features have lately. However, it does feel very compromised, very safe, and pretty dull. Philippa Soo singing Chang-e's "Extraluminaria" is great, but the rest of the film is a real let-down, I'm sorry to say.
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