I really wish I had enjoyed this one more, because as a Chinese person, I enjoyed seeing so many familiar cultural elements. Additionally, Chinese mythology is very rich and underutilized by the animation industry (outside of the Chinese market itself, of course), so seeing a reimagining of what Chang'e's fate would be so many years after her exile to the moon sounded interesting but didn't quite live up to what it could have been.
The character design is appealing and like many others have said, it starts out strong emotionally, but as soon as they get to the moon it starts to fall apart. First off, the design of Lunaria is really hard to look at. There are so many motifs of Chinese architecture and design that could have been used instead of oversimplified brightly-coloured blobs, so I felt somewhat let down when the design for moon queen Chang'e's realm was so generic and without identity. I'm not saying every Chinese production has to be overtly, stereotypically Chinese, but I think most people would agree with me when I say that the outside of Lunaria was just exceptionally ugly and unmemorable. Whenever comparisons are made to Disney properties, I find they're not always being made fairly. Disney is a gigantic, rich company with nigh endless resources, and these are comparatively smaller studios. However, I do see the merit in comparing this movie to Coco. Both have themes of grief and familial bonds, and both eventually take place in a fictitious reconstruction of a legend from their respective cultures. When you look at the two settings of Lunaria and Coco's Land of the Forgotten, you can tell that a lot of love for Mexican culture and research went into the construction of the latter while Over the Moon took a much simpler and impersonal approach. Considering how authentic and life-like Feifei's real-world hometown is, Lunaria felt very artificial and almost like it belonged in a different movie.
Putting my grievances with the setting design aside (because I could go on forever), the plot may be generic, but I don't believe generic plots are inherently bad. A cliche done well can be very enjoyable. However, while this plot did tug at my heartstrings at times, there were too many plot contrivances that had to be made in order for many major events to happen -- why was the gift hidden in a mooncake? -- and this kind of took away from the impact of these events. Perhaps if they had framed the whole moon trip more as a dream, like if they had shown the children waking up in the crash site of Feifei's homemade rocket, the audience would be lead to believe that these things did not literally happen and were all symbolic -- in fact, I think this was meant to be the case as Mrs. Zhong has Chang'e's full amulet at the end of the movie, but it was left just a little too unexplained for us to make the connection ourselves. Why Feifei goes to the moon in the first place is a bit of a stretch -- proving Chang'e as real will make her dad remember her mom? My mother and I were both confused about this, and we had to talk it through to figure out why Feifei was even going to the moon. I think it would have worked better if it had been framed as Feifei, in her grief, wanting to abandon her family altogether by running into the arms of a fairytale her mother used to tell to her.
Unlike many others, I don't mind the ambiguity of why Chang'e took the two immortality pills. It leaves you wondering, and I think they left this area ambiguous on purpose because each Chinese kid has been told a different version of the myth. I feel like if they had poked fun at this ambiguity itself once on the moon it would have felt less like a question that was meant to be answered and more like a conscious choice.
As others mentioned, the emotional arcs felt rushed overall and the characters of Feifei and Chin didn't seem to get along in the end because of their experiences but because the plot said for them to. The father, who should have played a larger role in this grieving arc, didn't have any development or change at all.
I've already rambled for too long, but despite its flaws, I thought the vocals were very beautiful. The songs could have been more memorable if used sparingly, because there were seriously so many songs. I didn't enjoy the insertion of pop culture into the Chang'e song sequences but I think it worked for what they were trying to communicate -- perhaps her loss of identity as a result of her grief and solitude. Animation was solid, and if more love was put into this project, it could have been much better. But at the end of the day, young children will likely enjoy this movie far more than teens or parents.
