Smallfoot 2018
For some reason it seems like similar movies are often released together and constantly get mixed up with each other. Smallfoot came out in 2018 and was then followed by Abominable and Missing Link in 2019. Now I have finally watched all three and they are all pretty different and all worth watching, but this might be the pick of the litter. I wanted to put this on a shelf with very average animated movies, and I was right at first with the bathroom humor, and some silly characters, but then there were a couple of decent songs (a key song by Common sounds like the rapspiel from Hamilton) and things started going in more interesting directions instead of the standard misunderstood monster suffering at the hands of humans. There is also some decent slapstick humor that made me laugh out loud a couple of times. I was surprised at how deftly things come together as the movie progresses. The humans are mostly pushed to the background since the movie is actually more about the yetis. Even the antagonist has a reason for his misdeeds, giving some depth to that character and making the protagonist’s dilemma kind of realistic, with some good themes about culture clashes. The world of the yetis shows a lot of imagination and thought. Not all of it works and the movie often goes for easy gags or caricatures, but there is a strong spark of creativity and originality at work that gets this to an A-.
Written: 12 Aug 2021
Owned on: Digital