Category: Animation

The Addams Family

Rated: PGThe Addams Family

Directed by: Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Screenplay by: Matt Lieberman, Pamela Pettler

Story by: Matt Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja, Conrad Vermon

Based on Characters by: Charles Addams

Produced by: Gail Berman, Alex Schwartz

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll with Better Midler and Allison Janney.

The Addams Family has always been about the dark and creepy; the humour based on the inversion of what is horror and terrible, think spiders being unleashed from under Morticia’s (Charlize Theron) dress to weave together a spider bridge to cross a bottomless pit… Now that’s Addams Family normal.  While all that’s sweet and rosy is awful and intolerable, is normal – see spider bridge mentioned above.

Morticia cuts the rose flower leaving the theory stem.  That’s how she likes it.  Morticia carries a pose of thorny stems as she walks down the aisle to marry her one true love, Gomez Addams (Oscar Issac), ‘To be joined in the damning void of matrimony’.  To marry in their homeland before the villagers chase away the scary couple, along with their monstrous guests and bridal party.  They must make their way to a safer place where they can be themselves, somewhere to raise a family, somewhere like the state hospital for the criminally insane.  In New Jersey.  Perfect.

#MeetTheAddams is the tagline for this new animated version, the movie the origins of the Addams, taking the story back to the beginning, to introduce the family once again with the familiar characters captured like Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll), delightful with his, ‘I think I can see my house from here.  No, that’s a women’s prison.’

And the children, the memorable murderous Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and demolition, forever-trying-to-outsmart-and-kill-his-father, Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard).

The film becomes the lead-up to Pugsley’s thirteenth birthday, to complete the Sabre Mazurka in front of all the cousins and monstrous family.  To become a man.

There’s more to this film than the inversion of what’s horror and what’s nice, there’s also assimilation and the fight against always having to be the same.  Wednesday becomes friends with a normal: Parker (Elsie Fisher).  And shows her rebellion by wearing, OMG, a pink unicorn hairclip.

So, yeah, there’s that inversion again.  But there’s also acceptance of the individual.  I like that in a movie.

Add ‘plastic’ woman, Margaux (Allison Janney) trying to re-model the abode, the casa Addams insane asylum, and you’ve got fun times and a good watch with the kids without being too childish or too adult.

Hell, it’s worth a watch just to see Lurch (Conrad Vernon) done-up like a Christmas tree.

Violence Voyager

Rated: Unclassified (18+)Violence Voyager

Written and Directed by: Ujicha

Produced by: Yoshimoto Kogyo, Reo Anzai / Kimitsugu Ueno

Executive Producer: Hidesuke Kataoka

Music by: Jean-Paul Takahashi

Theme Song “Violence Voyager” by Boby (Aoi Yuki)

English Voice Director: Strathford Hamilton

Production: Hiroshi Fujiwara

Key Cast: Aoi Yûki, Naoki Tanaka, Saki Fujita, Shigeo Takahashi.

‘That one extra bit of summer fun was going to take Bobby through hell.’

Violence Voyager had its Australian Premiere at the recent MIFF – I thought it would be a good idea to review something different for upcoming Halloween.  And yes, Violence Voyager is certainly something a bit different.

Set-up like a childhood adventure story, Bobby (the foreign American kid) tells his sick mother he’s going out to find flowers for her empty valse sitting on the windowsill.  But really, he’s going to the mountain with his best buddy, his blood brother (sporting stitched cuts on their hands to prove it) Akkun – who also, strangely has what looks like scars on his forehead.

Added to the childlike voice-overs and the adventure aspect that includes Bobby’s cat, Derrick who tags along, the whole film is painted cardboard cut-outs with static facial expressions, the movement made by hand like kids playing with a shadowbox filled with toys.

But when the trio, Bobby, Akkun and Derrick-the-cat find a run-down Fun Park, the film becomes a nightmarish hell where kids never escape: they either become modified with all their nerve endings on the outside and their eyes pulled out of their sockets and placed on horizontal sides of their now square face, or they get dissolved to become food for half-robot hybrid human monsters under the command of park-owner but really scientist, Dr Binobo and daughter and navigator, Siori.

There’s a deceiving simplistic feel about this film, the voice-over slow and deliberate, the timing of the dialogue giving the most affect.

But there’s plenty of splattered blood and vomit and naked kids hung like hocks – the theme horrific and the images of those cardboard cut-outs bizarre.

Definitely not one for the kids to watch this Halloween.  I wouldn’t classify Violence Voyager as ‘Family’.

Yet, for all its horror, the film was palatable because I was always delighted to see another clever technique giving texture to this bizarre tale like blue vapour rising around the cardboard Dr. Binobo making him look evil, a rising shadow over the cardboard Bobby to depict a pending doom and the kids armed with a super-soaker and dolphin water pistol squirting real water onto those monster robots giving the scene another dimension like those pop-up books I read in primary school.

And that juxtaposition lent another layer to the bizarreness of this simply, horrifically clever film.

With a bat, monkey and cat on your team, you can’t lose – well you can still become a deformed robot, humanoid monster, but in the world of Violence Voyager, that’s a win.

Abominable

Rated: GAbominable

Written and Directed by: Jill Culton

Produced by: Suzanne Buirgy

Producer: Peilin Chou

Executive Producers: Tim Johnson, Frank Zhu, Li Ruigang

Starring: Chloe Bennet, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Albert Tsai, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, Tsai Chin, Michelle Wong.

Yi (Chloe Bennet) lives in an apartment in a busy Chinese city with her mum and grandma.

She keeps herself busy; too busy to play with her neighbour, all braces and squeaky-voiced, Peng (Albert Tsai), and Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) who is typically teen self-obsessed.

Because if she stops for a moment, then she’ll remember her dad is gone.

The only time Yi allows herself to remember her dad is when playing violin.  And that’s when she meets Everest – up on the rooftop where the yeti is hiding from the people who had captured him and kept him in a cage.

On the run from the bug-eyed and rich explorer Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson), the trio decide to take Everest back home.  Back to the Himalayas.  And so the adventure begins.

The DreamWorks Animation team have outdone themselves, the trailer for Abominable not translating just how majestic the film is on the big screen.  There were so many times I said, ‘Amazing’ and ‘Wow’ from watching the trio of kids and yeti ride a wave of yellow blossoms to see raindrops fall to the earth to unfurl into flowers.  And not just a few times, the film is just one wonderful moment after another.

It’s the detail and captured behaviour in those details of even the small characters that delights – ‘You just darted Dave!’ from a gun-for-hire; and the grandmother captured so well with her constant, ‘that’s what I say’.

And there’s an intricate story here about family and grief but also about the magic of nature where, ‘It’s amazing how small you feel, just looking up.’

Where there are those who appreciate nature and those who want to cut it down and take it home.

‘I own that yeti,’ says the brutish Burnish.

And the yeti, Everest was not abominable but adorable with his underbite and puppy-like behaviour.

I love that furry critter!

And so did my nephews who enjoyed the film just as much as I did; one asking if I was OK at one point because I was a little teary with the sweetness of it all.  I even got a hug.

Funny and sweet and beautifully realised, Abominable is a real treat.

The Secret Life Of Pets 2

Rated: PGThe Secret Life Of Pets 2

Directed by: Chris Renaud

Co-Directed by: Jonathan Del Val

Written by: Brian Lynch

Produced by: Chris Meledadri, p.g.a., Janet Healy, p.g.a

Voices by: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Patton Oswalt, Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Lake Bell with Harrison Ford.

‘If you pee on it, you own it’:  The wisdom of Terrier Max.

We all love our pets and their shenanigans.  My cat Cloud, AKA Cheeky brat, AKA Ching-Chong-Chunk is a constant source of entertainment and companionship.

The Secret Life Of Pets (2016)) managed to tap into that delight of humans and what we imagine our pets get up to when we’re not around.

Here, in The Secret Life Of Pets 2, we get Terrier Max (Patton Oswalt) returning with the loveable house-mate and mutt, Duke (Eric Stonestreet), along with pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) taking a steam in the dishwasher and Chloe (Lake Bell) teaching Gidget the way of the cat.

The characteristics of animals we know and love are captured in detail making me smile in recognition, cat-meowing-in-sleeping-human-face included.

So starting out, all I could think was, Adorable.

In this next instalment, Max is coping with the introduction of another member of the family, baby Liam.

With Max stress-scratching we see the running theme of fear and rising to the challenge of life and facing fear, all cumulating when the family visit a farm.

Here we meet a wise farm dog and crazy stalker turkey.

All the birds are crazy-eyed and brainless, managing to always get me giggling.

Then there’s this side-story with an evil circus and lion and rescue mission from wolves I didn’t really get.

The humour was more slapstick as well, moving away from the cheeky pet behaviour that makes The Secret Life Of Pets so good.

Sure, this side-mission added adventure and was perhaps aimed at the youngsters in the audience; but I didn’t really sense a positive response from the kids either.

The super-hero bunny Snowball (Kevin Hart) with Daisy-the-brave (Tiffany Haddish) felt like another story from another movie.  And it didn’t really gel because the attachment to Max and Co. was already made.

I just wanted to keep watching Max at the farm and Gidget and the cat Chloe back at the city apartment block – that’s what I was interested in.  That’s what I found funny: the behaviour of the characters as pets, not as super-hero adventurers.

So, some of the film I adored; the rest, not so much.

Missing Link

Rated: PGMissing Link

Directed by: Chris Butler.

Screenplay by: Chris Butler

Produced by: Arianne Sutner, p.g.a., Travis Knight, p.g.a.

Voices by: Hugh Jackman, David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas, Zach Galifianakis, Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldana, Amrita Acharia, Ching Valdes-Aran, Emma Thompson.

Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is a seeker of mythical beasts.  All he wants in life is to be accepted into the Optimates Club – a society where he feels he belongs, working alongside those who discover and shape the world.

But really, it’s the ‘world that shapes us,’ Sir Lionel discovers, going on to say, ‘Someone should write that down.’  Ha-ha, I laugh, while writing the quote in my trusty notebook.

This is an amusing tale, from a giant footprint to a man-sized shoeprint, Sir Frost’s quest takes him on a journey to find the one who made that giant footprint, making a wager with Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry) that he’ll prove the existence of the sasquatch (Zach Galifianakis), to find the missing link of the evolution of ape to man.

If Sir Frost wins the wager and can prove the existence of the sasquatch, Lord Piggot-Dunceby agrees to apologise for his disbelief and Sir Frost would finally be accepted into the club of Most Notable Men.

The film is made using stop-animation, explained in the production notes as, ‘The manipulation of physical objects in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they appear to exhibit independent motion when played back in sequence. In practice, the animator moves the object, takes a picture, moves the object, takes a picture, and so on.’

The characters, puppets made from 3D printers and foam and any number of techniques, are exaggerated to give the puppets’ faces personality like the hooked nose of villain, Stenk (Timothy Olyphant) hired to take Sir Frost out of the exploring game and the apelike countenance of Mr Link used to off-set the human characteristics of being able to write and speak English.

The LAIKA animators photographed the stop-motion puppets 24 frames per second, turning the inanimate into characters with emotion – the exasperation of side-kick Mr. Lemuel Lint (David Walliams) shown in the half-lidded blink of an eye before getting, ‘mauled by a lake-monster’; Nessie coaxed out of hiding by a blast of bagpipes.

The humour of the taking-everything-literally, Mr Link didn’t always hit the mark for me.  But as the film continued, the story and setting of the journey of Mr Link and Sir Frost, seeking others of the sasquatch kind – like the Yeti – evolved (ha-ha) with the addition of widow and once close acquaintance of Sir Frost, the fiery Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana).

On the journey to Tibet to find Mr. Link’s distant cousins (the Yetis) we get Mr. Link naming himself Susan and mimicking a chicken who cannot be acknowledged, tickling as a granny Tibetan gesticulates with the demented chook perched on her head: hilarious.

Being a family film, I took my nephew along to enjoy together and to see if he liked the film – my nephew claiming the film deserved a 4.1/5.

Watching as an adult, I found plenty of humour to enjoy as well, thinking more 3.5, so I’m a splitting the difference and giving Missing Link, 3.7/5.

How to Tran Your Dragon: Hidden World

Rated: PGHow to Tran Your Dragon: Hidden World

Directed and Written by: Dean DeBlois

Based on the Books of: Cressida Cowell

Produced by: Brad Lewis, Bonnie Arnold

Starring: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Kit Harrington, Craig Ferguson, F. Murray Abraham.

The final of the trilogy (I had to go back and watch the previous two instalments (well worth the watch), How to Train your Dragon: Hidden World, finds Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his Night Fury, Toothless, saving dragons from the Hunters to bring them back to the safety of Berk where Vikings and dragons coexist in peace.

Does anyone else think it’s strange that the Vikings have Scottish accents?!

The Hunters don’t believe dragons should be treated as equals, the evil villain, Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), the Fury killer, believing peace can only be found when every Fury is dead.

The Hidden World is full of myth and fantasy; the Mariner Myth of the Hidden World a place where dragons live freely at the end of the world is the drive behind the story.

While fighting to save dragons from the clutches of Grimmel and searching for the mysterious Hidden World, Toothless meets a female Fury who’s beautiful and light with expressive blue eyes and moves that make his little heart race.

The courtship between these two is adorable, there’s no other word, my nephews and I awing and ahing at the antics of Toothless, his attempt to woo the beautiful Light Fury hilarious and delightful.

And the animation of this adventure-packed film is stunning; the burst of colours and detail of waterfalls and expressions of the dragons spectacular on the big screen.

Returning director and writer, Dean DeBlois has made a film to be enjoyed by all with some happy tears shed by many in the audience.

While making the most of the colourful characters like Tuffnut (T. J. Miller) brandishing his full thick beard (hilarious), we get a story about love, equality and freedom.

I had a smile on my face the whole way through, my nephew announcing The Hidden World the best How to Train Your Dragon out of the three, and quite rightly getting an applause from the audience at the end.

He then went on to say it was the best movie he’s ever seen.

I wouldn’t go that far, but The Hidden World is a great entertainer and a certain hit for the school holidays.

Elliot The Littlest Reindeer

Rated: GElliot The Littlest Reindeer

Directed and Written by:  Jennifer Westcott

Produced by:   Michael Emerson, Victoria Wescott

Starring: Morena Baccarin, Josh Hutcherson, John Cleese.

I must confess I got excited when I read about the stellar voice cast including names such as John Cleese and Martin Short. I love animation and I knew absolutely nothing about Elliot The Littlest Reindeer, walking in with an open mind.

First impression was weak though for he graphics looked like I was home playing PS4 and the awkward character’s tone attempt to wink at humour was soon defeated by a numb storyline. There was one moment I laughed, when the Highland horse with Braveheart-painted face and accent to match appeared on the screen. And that was it.

Barely 30 minutes into the film, something unprecedented happened: half the reviewers watching left the cinema. Imagine that. And I sat there, unable to find a comfortable position not the will to fall asleep for a painful hour and a half. Do you want to know my very honest opinion? Well, I wouldn’t take my worst enemy’s children to endure this waste of time and resources. Still want to know more? Sure, let’s continue.

The protagonist, a miniature horse with illusions of grandeur, is bullied by jerk-reindeers (the film’s words not mine) every time he attempts to train with them. Suddenly, Blitzen decides to retire and Santa organises a competition to select the next best thing and everything goes down the hill from here. Elliott goes from friendly horse to wannabe-reindeer in sixty seconds flat, leaving his old friends for a chance to be accepted.

But wait, there is more. The baddie-bad villain Miss Ludzinka, a Cruella De Ville type voiced by Martin Short, plans to purchase Elliott’s farm to make jerky out of its residents. Yes, I said jerky. Yummy. Now, after winning, Elliott is disqualified for not being a reindeer and the judges discover that DJ (the antagonist, Blitzen’s son and Elliot’s personal jerk-reindeer bully for convenience sake) has used additional ‘magical cookies’ to stay high in the sky for longer and win the competition.

If they don’t win, they lose the farm. All is lost, or is it? No spoilers here. All I am going to say if that the logline ‘big dreamers dream big’ is repeated over and over to ensure the audience stays tuned and follows Elliott the wannabe-reindeer and his owner the wannabe-farmer on their journey to become better beings.

What happens next? You’ll have to find out. Or maybe not. Maybe you can spare your kids and go watch something where animals are not threatened to be butchered, smoked and become jerky. Just a thought.

Redeeming features of the film include a nice old-fashioned score by Grayson Matthews and interesting facial expressions courtesy of animation director Sean Coughlin’s and his team. Until next time!

Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch

Rated: GThe Grinch

Directed by: Scott Mosier, Yarrow Cheney

Based on the Book: ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ by Dr. Seuss 1957

Screenplay by: Michael LeSieur, Tommy Swerdlow

Produced by: Chris Meledandri, p.g.a, Janet Healy, p.g.a

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rashida Jones, Kenan Thompson, Cameron Seely with Angela Lansbury and Pharrell Williams.

Based on the Dr. Seuss book (1957) ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, The Grinch modernises a classic tale of a self-isolating grump (Grinch’s voice-over by Benedict Cumberbatch) who hates Christmas because he can’t stand all the bright light and exuberant joy – three times as much joy called for this year by the major of Whoville.

All Grinchie (so named by the super-friendly neighbour Bricklebaum (Kenan Thompson)) feels when he sees all that joy is pain.

Being chased by over-enthusiastic carollers in town while having to re-stock the cupboards after emotional over-eating… during Christmas week… does not help matters.

What Grinch wants is quiet and isolation in his abode on Mt. Crumpet, with his constant companion Max; the dog able to read his moods from annoyed to really annoyed while making his morning coffee.

So when Grinch sees the size of the giant Christmas tree, where all the Who Folk of Whoville will sing carols – it’s too much.

Christmas has to be cancelled.

And the way to stop Christmas is to dress up like Santa, abduct a tubby reindeer, Fred who looks like he ate the other seven reindeers (hilarious), steal a sleigh from a roof-top and burglarise everyone’s house taking all the presents.

That’ll make him feel better.  He thinks, until he meets little Cindy-Lou (Cameron Seely) who only wants to help her overworked mum.  Cindy-Lou doesn’t want presents, she only wants to feel the joy.

It’s all very sweet.  And the classic nature of The Grinch, the cantankerous meanness of the green, pot-bellied critter is even funnier when alongside the over-joyous Whos while Max and Fred (the orange-haired reindeer) are all the more adorable alongside the grumpy Grinch.

Everyone loves to see a Grinch turn good.  It warms the heart.

And the attention to detail, the artwork of scenes like the light maze and the inventions of Grinch including the extenda-legs; Max turning in his dog matt just that one more time like real dogs do; The Grinch trucking around in sandals over socks; and the little stubby legs of Cindy-Lou as she prepares to leave for the north pole to find Santa in four winter jackets really keeps up the cuteness and fun of the film.

It took me a while to get absorbed into the Christmas world and spirit, but I couldn’t help some laugh-out-loud moments with the screaming goat – Benedict Cumberbatch as The Grinch noting the goat as nothing but ‘strange’ – capturing that sense of humour that I find ticklish.

The Grinch is a classic made with a wave of magic from the Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri who also adapted Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and The Lorax (2012), the success here in those added details so the kids will be entertained by the fun of the story, the light twinkling, the not-so-quiet antics of Fred (who my nephew found hilarious!), while the adults will appreciate the extra effort of getting the wonder of the story as realistic as if it was a film about people: that crotchety old Grandpa, or grumpy Aunty that just needs an extra hug at Christmas-time.

Charming

Rated: GCharming

Written and directed by: Ross Venokur

Produced by: John H. Williams

Music by: Tom Howe

Starring: Demi Lovato, Wilmer Valderrama, Sia, Ashley Tisdale, Avril Lavigne, G. E. M., Nia Vardalos, with Chris Harrison and John Cleese.

While writer and director Ross Venokur read fairy tales to his three daughters over the years, they came to realise Prince Charming gets around.  Think about it: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… They’re all saved by the same guy.  They all fall for, Prince Charming.

In Charming, Venokur has turned the fairy tale around so it’s the Prince who’s cursed: there is such as thing as being too charming.  How is Prince Philippe Charming (Wilmer Valderrama) supposed to know whether it’s the curse or true love when all women are charmed by him?

Cursed by Nemeny Neverwish (Nia Vardalos), a scorned woman turned witch, Prince Charming must find true love before his twenty-first birthday to lift the curse of his charm.  If he doesn’t then all love will disappear from the kingdom.

Like his father and his grandfather, Prince Charming must complete the gauntlet; a journey of self-discovery and manhood while besting the unbeatable beast, escaping giant women cannibals, and most importantly taking a leap of faith to find his true love.

It’s only with the help of a rouge thief, Lenny while disguised as a man of the world but really Lenore Quinone (Demi Lovato), a girl who grew up on the seas, who has locked her heart away for good.  It’s only with her survival skills at the price of three fortunes in gold that the pampered, never-had-to-lift-his-charmed-finger-to-do-anything, has Charming any chance of completing the gauntlet.  Let alone find true love.

It’s lucky Lenore is immune to his charms, otherwise the quest would never have had a chance.  Nor the story.

Not that I was charmed by this film.

It was all a little pre-teen for me.  Complete with girl-band music for the soundtrack that I found difficult to believe the characters were singing.

And the story was stretched beyond believability, even for a fairy tale animation with Lenore jailed for her thievery to suddenly be offered three fortunes to get Prince Charming through the gauntlet!?

And Lenore putting on a baker’s hat was enough of a disguise to be mistaken for the short and fat baker?

And fake moustache and hat makes you look like a boy?

Well, yeah, I guess.  But not really.

I was however, charmed by details like the kingdom billboard advertising a lawnmower with a picture of a sheep and Charming offering Lenore’s partner-in-crime AKA a chirpy red bird a roasted pigeon leg.

And the animation was fluid with colours, my favourite scene when the two explorers enter an enchanted forest with vines reaching out with hands.

But the soundtrack and taking the leap-of-faith romance was directed at a younger audience who may be able to look past those stretches of narrative that made me roll my eyes because, as if!

Smallfoot

Rated: GSmallfoot

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera

Screen Story by: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick

Based on the book: Yeti Tracks, by Sergio Pablos

Produced by: Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry and Jimmy Tatro.

The only thing stronger than fear is curiosity.

Living above the clouds on the peak of a snowy mountain, a yeti named Migo (Channing Tatum) has been waiting to train to be like his dad and become a head-butting, gong ringer to call the sun-snail to bring the light of the sky every morning.

That’s what the stones say, and the Stonekeeper (Common) is always reminding the yeti tribe that below the clouds is the Big Nothing.

So when Migo is launched in training, only to miss the gong and be flung outside the yeti community, he’s as shocked as the human when he finds a smallfoot, as the smallfoot human is to find a yeti.

Disappearing from view and leaving no trace, his father and the rest of the village can’t believe Migo found a smallfoot.  Except the SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society).

Meechee (Zendaya) and her SES gang, Kolka (Gina Rodriguez), Gwangi (LeBron James), Fleem (Ely Henry) and Cali believe not just in the smallfoot, but that there’s far more out there then the stones have led them to believe.

On their research expedition into the Big Nothing they find Percy, a smallfoot with a career as a wildlife expert; a celebrity made famous by making a TV series that’s about to be cancelled because of a dwindling audience.  Percy will do anything to get his face out there.  Including faking a yeti sighting.  So, when he actually finds a yeti and the yeti finds a smallfoot, they’re both terrified and fascinated.

There’s this, ‘curiosity killed the yak’ theme versus the search for truth being more important than all else.

Which I felt dangerous for a young audience – to go out there searching for the truth no matter what.  I had an understanding for the want to lie to protect… which adds that needed obstacle to overcome in the film, giving the story a bit of grit.

The safety of the yeti and the threat of murder felt a little serious with nutty mountain goats and pink Snuffleupagus look-a-likes needed to soften the vibe of the film.

I just didn’t find the film very funny.

And I think some of the seriousness of the film may have been confronting for a really young audience.

Visually, the artwork and animation was smooth and beautifully put together with realistic fur and chase scenes seen from above like watching a game of Pacman.

But the story didn’t really work for me.  It wasn’t until the film got close to the end that I started to appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.

Mostly, I felt mildly uncomfortable with too many teachable moments for my taste.

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