The look is appealing, but the dark third act and heavy themes may alienate family audiences.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall
Director Jacques-Remy Girerd often divides the frame into three vertical bands, each with a different color signature; this dynamic technique makes the eventual introduction of explosive action sequences seem like overkill.
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
Alternately ambitious and simplistic, lively and bland, the French-produced adventure Mia and the Migoo never fully pinpoints its intended audience or many ecological messages.
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
Shares a spiritual link to the Japanese works of Hayao Miyazaki but lacks his films' narrative drive and magical overlay.
Lovingly designed, but dramatically inert.
Far too childish to intrigue adults yet too slow and dull for kids.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Trying to parse meaning in "Mia" is secondary to its main point, which is its look, created with 500,000 hand-drawn frames. That's impressive in an age in which most mainstream animation is done with computers.
Regrettably, both the condemnation of capitalist avarice and violence and the sanctification of nature and youthful innocence are dramatized only in simplistic black-and-white terms.
Mia and the Migoo boasts a handsome, folkloric look that is often undermined by a ham-handed script.
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
It's lovely, truly, but so heavy-handed and slipshod that it's probably best enjoyed with the sound off -- an option they're not likely to offer at the movie theater.