Mune Makes Up With Mesmerizing Vibrancy

Delivering work like Ernest and Celestine, The Secret of Kells and TV show Totally Spies! (fond memories of watching it on Cartoon Network) my admiration for French animation continues with Mune, le gardien de la lune or better known in English, Mune: Guardian of the Moon. 

Originally released in 2014, the story follows the titular character Mune (Joshua J. Ballard), through unexpected circumstances is chosen to be the guardian of the moon much to the chagrin to Sohone (Rob Lowe), the cocky new sun guardian, and Leeyoon (Christian Slater), who was originally set to be the moon guardian. Mune messes up on the first day of the job and an ancient evil takes advantage of the situation putting the world in mortal peril. With a wax-girl named Glim (Nicole Provost) Mune and Sohone begrudgingly travel together to save their home world.

I find it interesting that the first trailer consisted of Canadian voice actors but when Gkids took charge of the dubbing the lead characters particularly Mune and Glim retained their original actors while the supporting cast got celebrities. Among Rob Lowe and Christian Slater the rest of the cast consist of comedic actors Patton Oswalt and Ed Helms who voice the evil minions and Jeff Dunham who surprisingly does an admirable job as Phosphorus, one of the past moon guardians bringing a balance both funny and serious in the role of a wacky wise figure.  

It has the makings of a Miyazaki movie with beautiful visuals and a basic story but needs a little polishing. The premise is generic along with more than one character but makes up with astounding animation. The majestic jungles are reminiscent of James Cameron’s Avatar, and a journey to the dream world brought to mind the abstract room of Inside Out. Now that I think about it, Mune and Moana share a lot in common from the mythological origins of nature (the sea and islands in Moana and the sun and moon in Mune), protagonist goes on journey to save their home, a relatively stronger character accompanies them and don’t get along at first, and the journey to the fiery lair of a volcanic villain who harbors a mysterious past. Coincidence? In any rate despite a cliché start Mune ends on a high note making for an amazing movie experience and avoids being a foreign flop that has Direct-to-DVD written all over it like The Wild Life.