Movie Review: ‘Over the Moon’

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Zachary Nicholas

‘Over the Moon’, a new animated movie-musical was released on Netflix on October 16.

Sharan Robinson, Staff Writer

The new animated film, ‘Over the Moon’, was recently released on Netflix the past month. The film is directed by Glen Kaene, who worked at Disney.

‘Over the Moon’ is about a little girl whose mother dies and her father tries to remarry. The mother has always talked about the legend of Chang’e and her true love. Chang’e is from an ancient myth, where she and Houyi, the man she loves, are separated and she is left on the moon with her rabbit. Therefore to prove that true love exists, the protagonist goes to the moon to get a picture of Chang’e to show her dad that true love does exist and that he shouldn’t remarry. 

The animation is one of the best parts of the film, though in some candid shots,  the characters and the settings look straight out of a sims game. Every character is detailed and overall the movie looks exceptional. 

The voice acting is full of emotion and exuberance, with each person having a clear and precise tone. 

One of the worst mistakes of the movie is the consistency of the device with which a work of fiction’s unnatural events is portrayed. Usually, in most shows, unnatural events are explained using concepts like magic, god, technology, nature(ironic I know), mythology, etc. This movie makes you think that it uses technology to explain her journey. Then completely switches to mythology. This would be completely fine if there was some indication of the existence of such kind of power before, but no, it was introduced in the middle of the movie. 

Another pretty annoying mistake is the introduction of songs where it is not needed. The music and the songs in the movie are fantastic but it feels like the music is too shallow to make an effect on the viewer( or the listener ). The lyrics don’t mean anything, they’re either just the script said in a musical way or an explanation of events that are happening in that present moment.  

The character motivations and the actions that follow them make no sense. Why does one need to go to the literal moon to stop her dad from remarrying? On that subject, if the moon is indeed portrayed as mythical, then why does she talk about all that science, when all of it is going to get tossed out?

Overall, if you only care about the look and feel of a movie, rather than a good plot or characters or music or anything else that makes a good animated movie good, then do watch this movie.