“Tastes like honey, tastes like piles of money,” croons Rozebud (voiced by Miya Folick) early in the animated musical comedy “Boys Go to Jupiter,” set in a muggy Florida suburb. A wry teenager, Rozebud is serenading the pristine fruits growing in the greenhouse orchard of her mother’s orange juice plant — one of countless whimsical settings that make up points of interest across this movie’s peculiar Floridian map.
I say “map” because the sites depicted in “Boys Go to Jupiter,” the first feature from the artist Julian Glander, purposefully suggest the playable environment of a retro video game, or else a Richard Scarry town on acid. Each setting — a drained pool, a novelty hot-dog stand, a grubby motel room, to name a few — is formally discrete and aggressively computer generated, rendered in rubbery graphics and a spectacularly lurid neon palette.
Peopling the scenes are characters voiced by a cadre of comedic talent (Julio Torres, Eva Victor and Janeane Garofalo are among the ensemble) who intone their lines in a lethargic deadpan. Our hero is Billy 5000 (Jack Corbett), a teenage dirtbag obsessed with racking up cash. A food delivery courier, Billy is a recent inductee into the grindset; His guru is a motivational podcast host named Mr. Moolah (Demi Adejuyigbe).
Billy’s fixation on wealth builds to a big decision and a lesson about the things money can’t buy. But the magic of “Boys Go to Jupiter” lies in its more inventive supporting details: a gravestone on a mini-golf course; a customer who prefers his food prechewed; an alien worm with a falsetto. Here is a movie notably unafraid to manifest the weirdest of the weird, no matter what the Mr. Moolahs of the world have to say.
Boys Go to Jupiter
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.
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