ABOMINABLE – Review

There’s nothing actively wrong with DreamWorks’s latest, ABOMINABLE, but the end product fell far short of wowing me. After SMALLFOOT and Laika’s MISSING LINK, ABOMINABLE is the third Yeti-centered animated feature in less than a year and I felt I’d seen this all before. Our Yeti-like title character in ABOMINABLE is introduced escaping for a mysterious laboratory. The creature is next seen hiding out on apartment rooftops in Shanghai where he meets teenage Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennet). Yi lives awith her mother and grandmother and has been coping with the recent death of her father by spending her spring break at a series of odd jobs, saving money to take a cross-country journey her dad had promised. Yi becomes determined to help this Yeti find his way back home to Mount Everest, a location he recognizes from a billboard. The pair are joined by Yi’s phone-obsessed neighbor Jin (Tenzing Trainor) and his hyper little cousin Peng (Albert Tsai). They’re all pursued by the rich tycoon Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and his hesitant helper, zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson).

The animation in ABOMINABLE is eye-popping and the vocal work is professional. It moves quickly but too often I felt like I was spending time waiting for the obvious plot to follow its inevitable course. By the time it ended, I felt like I’d simply sat through a film that was marking off a checklist: misunderstood kid, misunderstood monster, an older character who’s had meaningful interaction with the beast earlier in life, chases, henchmen, and the usual bromides about friendship, the importance of family, girl power, etc. It’s all perfectly professional but predictable and lacks inspiration.

I’m not the audience for ABOMINABLE. This is a movie for smaller kids who will probably enjoy it for its colorful design and adorable characters. The computer animation offers vistas of well-known Chinese locations such as the Gobi Desert, the Yangtze Valley, and that giant Buddha statue all rendered skillfully. The best modern animated films should work for adults as well as children, but ABOMINABLE is not very funny and failed to hold my interest. Another problem is the creature design. Everest is cute and lovable enough, but so is a fuzzy plush carnival toy, which he resembles. I’m glad he didn’t speak (he sorta grunts and hums), but he lacks the magic and personality of other DreamWorks stars like Toothless or Po or just about any character from Pixar.

2 of 4 Stars