It opens and closes in modern day China, but the
bulk of the film is set in Lunaria, an imaginary
kingdom on the dark side of the moon that’s
filled with glowing, bubblegum-colored blobs
and where the laws of physics are tossed out.
The transition — from hyperreal cooked crabs
that glisten in a bowl in the first 30 minutes of
the film to amorphous, gooey Candyland critters
30 minutes later — is jarring. The sequences on
the moon grow tiresome, despite huge toads
that fly and squeaky-voiced critters.
It film starts with Fei Fei on her quest to meet the
mythical Moon Goddess, Chang’e. The immortal
goddess lives on the moon waiting to reunite
with her mortal love, the archer Houyi. Fei Fei’s
mother tells her the legend before she gets sick
and dies.
The film jumps four years into the future and Fei
Fei’s dad is considering re-marrying, a horrific
prospect for his daughter. Fei Fei reasons that
if she can prove that Chang’e — and eternal
love — really do exist, her dad will ditch his new
girlfriend. “I just want things back the way they
were,” she says. So she starts building a rocket.
Grief was part of the film’s DNA: Screenwriter
Audrey Wells died of cancer in 2018 while the
film was being made and the final product is
dedicated to her memory, with some lines like
“you have to move on” all the more poignant.
Unfortunately, the film has echoes of previous
animated fare — like the missing mother and
engineering-bent of the young heroine from
“Wonder Park” — and the assortment of adorable
sidekicks from “Frozen 2.” It also recalls the trippy
Technicolor shift from “The Wizard of Oz.”