ABOMINABLE (2019)
Tagline: Find your way home.
(Animation, Adventure, Comedy) [PG]
I'm hit! Tell Nai Nai's pork buns I loved them!
This movie has a really simple plot. A yeti has escaped from a facility and while hiding on a rooftop runs into Yi (voice by Chloe Bennet who is most famous for being Skye on the TV show “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”). Yi fairly quickly befriends the Yeti and discovers via a nearby billboard that he wants to go home to Mount Everest. She then quickly names the Yeti Everest, because that’s just how we are doing things now. Yi has two great friends named Peng (voiced by Albert Tsai) and Jin (voiced by Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and they kind of look at her like a sister, so they are going to help her get this freakin Yeti to Mount Everest. Unlike in a lot of movies, this Yeti actually has magical powers that really come in hand and become more and more powerful the closer he gets to his family…who lives at Mount Everest and apparently just never bothered looking for him.
I don’t want to give too much away because there are a few twists and turns in this movie regarding who is after who and why. These little twists actually help add a ton of heart to this movie. I actually completely overlooked this thing when it came out, but kept it on the back burner as something I wanted to check out based on the previews.
What works – The animation in this thing is freakin incredible. That makes total sense when you take into account that it was made by the producers of the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON series which features some mind-blowing groundbreaking stuff. This movie is loaded with cool scenes and massive amounts of detail. I will say the Yeti should remind you of Toothless because he and toothless basically have the same facial expressions. I also love that they gave this Yeti some powers. There are a lot of movies where Yeti are menacing, or super tough, but I don’t think I have ever seen a movie with magic Yeti. Everest is like a furry X-MEN in some ways. I also love that they got the legendary James Hong involved in this movie. If you don’t know who James Hong is, he might be most famous for playing David Lo Pan in BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, but over his career, he’s got 440 + acting credits, it’s quite astonishing. We also have Sarah Paulson playing Dr. Zara which I kind of feel is cool in a way, but odd in a way because she’s faking an accent for most of the movie. This was her first time voicing a character for an animated movie released in theaters. I also liked that they gave this Yeti incredible powers, but he was still “catchable” and “vulnerable”. For me it’s bad writing when certain characters are basically invincible, so you really don’t even care if they get caught, because they will just break out or bend metal, or pick a lock or DEADPOOL, or Mothra will show up...or whatever. In this movie the Yeti actually needs help and that makes this thing even more heartwarming.
What doesn’t work- Umm, nothing. This movie is freakin adorable. I loved pretty much everything about it. I would definitely watch it again. I actually liked it better than any of the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON movies and that is saying a LOT. This was an unexpected triumph and I am really glad I took pause to actually watch it. There are some political controversies that lead to this film not being shown in Vietnam or Malaysia but I try to rate movies for what we got, not the real-life events surrounding them.
I give this movie a solid 6 out of 7. Great fun for the entire family. Except maybe someone who dislikes the Chinese government so much that they dislike the people there also, which is nonsense.
Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless. Until next time.
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