Moongirl

Having seen several Laika productions, I was intrigued to learn they'd made a short, so I found it on youtube. It's very disappointing.

The disjointed story involves a boy out night fishing who winds up on the moon. The story reminded me a little of an episode of Axecop, only that series is purposely nonsensical while this one seemed to be going for a sense of wonder and failing. There's no attempt at character building beyond giving one kid a cloying southern accent, and the story feels like it should have either been long enough to fully explore the concept or about 50 seconds long so it would just flash by with some striking visuals.

The end result looks kind of nice but, as another reviewer here noted, has no heart at all.

I saw this before a screening of Strings at Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. Sure, you can create neato animated characters. Sure, you can have a cute little storyline. Sure, you can make it. You can find and pay animators to create it. But, this short has no heart... it just frankly doesn't work. The crowd didn't laugh, smile, clap... nothing... And my heart felt empty after watching it. On a different note, I liked Corpse Bride fairly well though not great. But Moongirl is a huge waste of time and money. It feels like a marketing ploy. Let's throw a bunch of cuteness at the audience. They'll love it. But you don't feel the love of the director or animators. Its totally flat.

The short animated film Moongirl, while beautifully CG created, rings hollow. I think nowadays beautifully rendered CGI graphics do not cut it anymore if it doesn't come with a compelling enough story to engage an audience.

Not that Moongirl's story doesn't work. but I feel that it's more for the kids, and it's an opportunity for the filmmakers to flex those artistic muscles in creating fairly complex visuals. I thought the little twist at the end was quite neat, but besides that, there's nothing much to move the narrative along.

Strictly as a show-reel, and nothing more.

Not that you'd expect much from this, but 'Moongirl' is an underwhelming short. It did kickstart Laika's work so that's something. It has a potentially interesting idea, but it never made an impact on me. The animation isn't all that, either.