Movie Review: Abominable
Abominable is a movie we’ve seen dozens of times before, so even though it runs on rails it isn’t altogether bad. The one thing that switches it up even a little bit is its Chinese setting. In the dozen of other iterations of this film, this would have always been set in America. Likely the most interesting thing about Abominable is what it says about the future of Sino-American relations and global culture as even American animation studios with American creative teams try to go after the Chinese market more explicitly.
But otherwise, this is just an animated E.T. with a Yeti.
Our main story revolves around Yi, a teenage girl played by Chloe Bennet (Marvel’s Agents of Shield), herself a Chinese-American, who finds this runaway creature, befriends it and decides she needs to take it back to Mount Everest where it came from. This trip ends up mirroring a planned trip that she and her recently deceased father had always meant to go on. The trip ends up healing her and her grief as they discover more and more of the yeti, who she names Everest, and his magical powers.
But also this seems like a tourist travel video promoting the beautiful and varied landscapes of China. If this movie had been set in America, they would have stopped at the iconic places we all would think of– Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, etc. They do the same with the Gobi Desert and the Yangtze River as it seems Everest’s most powerful magic is to completely distort space and time so that each of these things are within walking distance of one another. But hey, it’s a kids movie.
The animation is crisp and beautiful. It’s everything we expect DreamWorks to do. Everest’s playful design is quite reminiscent of another Dreamworks Animation main creature– Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon films. Kids will absolutely love him.
It’s also worth noting that writer and director Jill Culton is a veteran of Pixar who worked on not only the Monsters, Inc. films but also several of the Toy Storys. Everest is essentially Sully mixed with Toothless, and that’s not a bad combination. But as I said, we’ve seen this movie before. And frankly, it’s been done better. Monsters, Inc IS this movie, except the human Boo is the magical monster. But if you’re going to steal, then stealing from that and ET isn’t a bad place to start.
One of the most interesting choices of the film is that its antagonists, played by Eddie Izzard and Sarah Paulson read as English and American. That can’t be accidental, as it’s their greed, pride, etc that leads them to want to capture the yeti for their own nefarious purposes. It’s hard not to read something into that, although perhaps it’s completely earned.
Or perhaps we shouldn’t read anything more into it oh, the same way we don’t particularly read Maleficent or Cruella Deville as being “English” in an American context. Maybe it’s just a cute movie about a teenage girl and her friends who go on a magical adventure with a yeti.
Regardless, while you can do far better then this by-the-numbers animated film, you can also do much worse. If your kids drag you to Abominable, you won’t hate it, and you might even enjoy aspects of it. It’s not Pixar or How to Train Your Dragon, but it’s trying to be. And that’s not so terrible.
2 1/2 out of 5 stars
“From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend. The legend of Voltron: Defender of the Universe. A mighty robot, loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron’s legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On Planet Earth, a Galaxy Alliance was formed. Together with the good planets of the Solar System, they maintained peace throughout the universe until a new horrible menace threatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed once more. This is the story of the superforce of space explorers. Specially trained and sent by the alliance to bring back, Voltron: Defender of the Universe.“ – Narrated By Peter Cullen
Defender Of The Universe: Bring back the wording Defender of the Universe. Voltron has never been called the Legendary Defender. I am ok with rebooting the franchise, but I think calling Voltron The Legendary Defender is taking it a tad too far.
King Alfor: In the original series they talked a lot about King Alfor who is the father to Princess Allura. He would appear every once in a while when the Voltron Force and in particular Princess Allura needed his advice. After all it was King Alfor was the man responsible for digging the tunnels from the castle to the lions. It would be nice to see King Alfor more often in the new series and maybe explore that back story a little bit more.
An Awesome Toy Line: I remember clearly having a die cast Voltron where all five lions formed Voltron. There were a few cool toys like the Castle Of Lions, as well as the individual Pilots as well as King Zarkon, Haggar The Witch and Prince Lotor. Voltron the third Dimension had a decent toy line but because the show was so bad they didn’t sell well, but when Voltron Force was being made Mattel was supposed to be doing a toy line for the show, the had mock ups and everything and was even displayed at San Diego Comic Con in 2011 and not one toy came out. They did a small Voltron original series collection through club Matty Collector but that was it. This new show needs to have a awesome toy line, especially to draw win the kids because they are what’s going to help make Voltron successful again.
