Review: Animals look for freedom in odd New Zealand-China coproduction ‘Mosley’

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“Mosley� is a strange little movie. The animated New Zealand-China coproduction aimed at kids is a weird metaphor for slavery. It’s set in what appears to be medieval times but looks like the Australian outback and sounds like, I don’t know, the “Deliverance“-y American Deep South? It’s yet another hero’s journey (complete with dark forest); this time, the protagonist must save his people from servitude and a kind of “corrupted� de-evolution.

The enslaved in this case are thoriphants: talking animals who look like crosses between mules and small elephants. Young Mosley is taken from his family and sold to a human farmer; he spends 25 years plowing rough, rocky, dry land. Grown Mosley (voiced by writer-director Kirby Atkins in his feature debut) and pregnant mate Bera (Lucy Lawless) have a child, Rue (Atkins’ daughter, Leah Atkins), whom they realize will soon be sold off as they were. Rue has discovered a cave with ancient paintings depicting the “uprights,� or legendary thoriphants who are bipedal and have hands. Desperate Mosley runs away in search of the uprights, hoping they can free his kind. The humans dispatch a hunter (New Zealand star Temuera Morrison) to retrieve the runaway.

Mosley will encounter the uprights (two of whom are voiced by Rhys Darby of “Flight of the Conchords� and John Rhys-Davies of “Lord of the Rings�) and learn the truth about them and their species’ divergence; meanwhile, Bera will have a difficult labor and Rue will face permanent familial separation. Some moments are a little dark (tonally) and perhaps frightening for small children. The hunter is brutal and scary. The humor doesn’t often land, despite the presence of Darby.

“Mosley� feels well-intentioned, though its lessons are unclear, especially considering its ending. And more humor and more fully developed characters could have enlivened the familiar hero’s journey template.