Abominable – 2019
If I were too hard on a $5 Tuesday matinee, animated kids movie, I would be forced to assign myself to the curmudgeon critic category. So, I’ll focus on Abominable’s pluses. Writer-director, Jill Culton, is the first-ever woman to solo direct an animated film with a female lead so I was witness to history for a mere $5. The beauty and splendor of China kept my eyes mostly open through the absolutely predictable plot. Everest, the captured baby Yeti, escapes a Shanghai lab, is relentlessly tracked by evil researchers and fortuitously hooks up with a trio of likable city teens who help defy the hunters. We meet independent, headstrong Yi who is grieving the death of her father, hip and trendy ladies’ man Jin, and chubby, rough and tumble Peng. These three kind of, kind of not friends accompany big-eyed, fluffy, snowkid Everest across China to his Himalayan home. This journey includes two memorable scenes of elegant, creative cinematography: a goldenrod field of flowers forms into a massive wave that slowly rises up and crashes down with the crescendo of a tsunami, and a billowing and flowing river of koi-like clouds swimming upstream across the sky. Along the way, Yi plays her father’s violin like a virtuoso, striking a synchronistic chord with nature that elicits pure enchantment. All pluses. It’s a sweet movie, definitely made for kids, no adult innuendo or subplots lurk at any level. The filmmakers skip over anything the least bit gnarly. The ‘how‘ of the death of Yi’s father and the ‘why’ of the respectful but strained relationship between Yi, mom and grandma are left to our imagination. Kumbaya hugs come at the end so I guess that’s enough. Then to quibble a tiny bit, how did the kids hop scotch through rivers, forests and mountains without so much as a jacket? At least they could have shivered once or twice. Ah, retreat to suspending belief. The magic of movies. For sure, for sure, for sure stay all the way through the credits. There is an instant “Abominable, the Sequel,” roll out that will reward your patience and send you from the theater with a smug smile for anyone who up and left at movie’s end.
Maybe a good movie to take the Grandkids to! You had me at first female director!