Julien Neaves, Editor
I watch a lot of genre content (sci fi, horror, superheroes) but a pleasant, family-friendly, animated feature is always a welcome change of pace. Now there are a lot of mediocre animated films out there, so when you find a good one it is like finding a $20 bill in a pair of jeans. So I was happy to find that Netflix’s Over the Moon falls into the “good” category.
The American-Chinese musical fantasy tells the story of a young girl named Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) who loses her mother. Years later when her father becomes interested in another woman she believes he has forgotten his late wife, and she plans a trip to visit the Moon Goddess Chang’e (Phillipa Soo) for help.
Firstly this movie is gorgeous to look at, from the smooth characters to the lively backgrounds. And when the story heads to the moon there is an explosion of colour that will make your eyes water. It is really lovely. The voice cast is very good as well, including American-Asian stars like Ken Jeong, John Cho, Margaret Cho and Sandra Oh.
The film does feel Disney-inspired in terms of structure and the music is just okay. But where Over the Moon is in its message of letting go and moving on. This is dealt with a surprising level of depth and maturity, and there are some truly touching scenes that make you want to reach for the tissue box.
So if you’re looking for a fun, beautifully animated, and resonant fantasy film then you should book a trip to go Over the Moon.
Julien’s Score: 7 out of 10
For my review of family friendly Sci Fi adventure Fearless you can click here.
Julien “Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by Freddy Krueger, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “12 flavours of awesome sauce”.
I can also be found posting on Instagram as redmanwriter and talking about TV and movie stuff on Facebook at Movieville.