Warner Animation Group’s latest CGI family feature is here, arriving amongst a storm of memes featuring Zendaya and a much-maligned advertising campaign. With a star-studded cast and animation veteran Karey Kirkpatrick (“Madagascar”, “James and the Giant Peach”) directing, does “Smallfoot” make a big splash?
W.A.G.’s fifth animated film continues its streak of creating gorgeously animated worlds to play in. While mostly restricted to mountains and snow, “Smallfoot” is nevertheless break taking to behold. Sweeping vistas grant a sense of scale only comparable to W.A.G.’s previous film “Storks” and the intricacies of the Yeti civilization are detailed and creative.
These creative and beautiful environments help to set the scene for the film’s numerous musical sequences. That’s right, while the trailer may have avoided this fact, “Smallfoot” is a musical. Not a full-on songfest like “Moana” or “Beauty and the Beast,” it has closer to five or six songs, rounding out the world nicely with catchy pop beats that are well crafted and infectious.
That is, except for one song, and that song, the only one sung by humans, shares a lot in common with the film’s biggest problem. While Migo, voiced with goofy charm by Channing Tatum (“21 Jump Street,” “Magic Mike”), and his cast of celebrity voiced abominable friends are all entertaining, featuring Zendaya (“Spider-Man Homecoming,” “euphoria”), Common (“Selma,” “John Wick: Chapter 2”), Lebron James, Gina Rodriguez (“Jane the Virgin,” “Deepwater Horizon”), and a stand-out Danny DeVito (“The Lorax,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). However, the same cannot be said for the movie’s human characters.
It’s easy to see a version of this film that’s about 20-30 minutes shorter with the human subplot completely cut out. It would undoubtedly be an improvement, as that subplot is the film’s biggest flaw. The main humans, Percy, voiced by James Cordon (“Ocean’s 8,” “The Emoji Movie”) and Brenda, voiced by Yara Shahidi (“Black-ish,” “Imagine That”), just fall flat and fail to be nearly as interesting or creative as the Yetis and their plot. It’s just boring compared to the Yeti’s tale, dealing with television ratings and viral hits. It seems completely at odds with the film its in and serves to extend the runtime.
This, in turn, drags down a story that is otherwise surprisingly deep. At its core, “Smallfoot” is a film about questioning your beliefs, even if its scary. Karey and his team pulls this off, not only with grace but with menace. There are some hard questions the film asks and even delving into topics like blissful ignorance and breaking societies pre-established rules. Most notably though, the movie doesn’t encourage completely throwing those themes out.
Funnily enough, it can best be compared to “Sausage Party” in that regard, as both films tackled the ideas of questioning beliefs instead of blindly following the tradition, without completely disrespecting those old ideals. It’s nothing life-changing, but its surprisingly smart and shows effort.
“Smallfoot” can easily be summed up in such a way. Nothing about the film is exceptional, and it may have one glaring flaw in its human subplot, but it’s still well intentioned. Mixing interesting subject material with gorgeous animation, catchy songs and a celebrity voice cast that pulls their weight, “Smallfoot” isn’t amazing. But it is nice and cool. 3/5
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