There is a certain safety that comes with movies about children and animals—they are so incredibly difficult to criticise! DreamWorks seems well aware of that fact, and right after a satisfying conclusion to the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, the studio has come up with Abominable, another film about a young child with a single parent who finds a dangerous animal and bonds with it. Except this time, it is set in China, which of course makes it a totally different movie.
The plot is simple enough. Yi (Chloe Bennet), a teenager struggling to accept the passing of her father, finds a yeti on her terrace and decides to return it to its home, on Mt. Everest. Accompanying her is generic adorkable child Peng (Albert Tsai), and his cousin Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), who may be the answer to the hole left in our hearts by Tadashi Hamada (Big Hero 6). Along the way, they have to dodge the nefarious zoologist Dr Zara (Sarah Paulson) and the eccentric Mr. Burnish (Eddie Izzard), who want to capture the yeti (creatively named Everest) for their own.
Yi, who is also a violin prodigy (because if you don’t have mastery of an instrument, are you even Asian?) discovers that Everest is also equipped with magic powers – extremely vague and undefined ones, but definitely all nature related. Throughout her journey, she learns the importance of home and family, returning with a renewed appreciation for both. Definitely themes one would want their children to imbibe, along with the message of sensitivity towards the environment – one that is more important now than ever.
There is not much to be said about the cast, who have done just about enough for their work to be classified as decent. Chloe Bennet sounds like any other teenage female protagonist in an animated movie, but then again she is 27, so there is that. Albert Tsai (you may recognise him from Trophy Wife and Fresh Off the Boat) is definitely a star on a steady rise, while Tenzing Norgay Trainor (from Liv and Maddie) does fine with Jin as well. As for Eddie Izzard, he definitely had fun with the role, which is more than can be said of Sarah Paulson –who seems to have discovered that there is only so much one can do as the voice actor for a one-dimensional villain in a kids’ movie.
All that being said, DreamWorks definitely stepped up their game in the animation department. Robert Crawford’s cinematography, combined with the art direction of Paul Duncan, make for a breathtakingly aesthetic travelogue through China, along with several magical sequences that deserve to be viewed on the big screen. Music played a significant role in the film as well, and under the capable hands of Rupert Gregson-Williams (who also scored The Crown), it shines through the average script to warm hearts.
Even setting How to Train Your Dragon aside, the final scenes were also vaguely reminiscent of the first Ice Age movie, another instance where three unlikely friends team up to return a baby from another species to its parents. The point is that these formulae have been working wonders for the animated film industry, and with good reason. With Abominable, DreamWorks decided to play it safe but honestly they did a pretty good job, and all while setting themselves up for a fortune in Everest plush toy merchandise.
Film: Abominable
Directors: Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman
Cast: Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson
Rating: 3.5/5