ANI-MOVIES, *Smallfoot

Starting a troika of animated movies featuring yeti, Smallfoot had a foot up on Abominable and Missing Link by about a year when the Warner Animation Group released it in 2018. Being the first non-Lego movie from WAG, this was based on an unpublished book by Klaus producer Sergio Pablos and directed by Over The Hedge's Karey Kirkpatrick. Being a Warner Bros. production, Smallfoot was of course casted entirely by Hollywood celebrities instead of professional voice actors. It was entirely done in CGI with a slightly jukebox musical score using older tunes with altered lyrics, so basically copying off DreamWorks battle plans. The movie did bank enough on its own making over 200 million in its theatrical run, even though no plans for a sequel have been made since then, not even you're average made-for-TV holiday special.

Happening atop a tall mountain in the Himalayans lives a tribe of yetis who have sealed themselves off from the rest of the world thanks to an elaborate system of lies told to the populace and a big steam machine that blocks both the view of the yetis of the world below as well from any humans. The yetis believe the sun comes up because one of them rings a giant gong, and eager young Migo is the son of the gong-ringer. Migo's world view is totally shaken when he sees a plane crashes on the mountain along with its human pilot which the yetis refer to as a smallfoot. The pilot parachutes away, so Migo has no way to prove his wild claim which gets him banished from the village until he conforms to the rules of their leader, the Stonekeeper. A few of their kind believe smallfoots exist, all of which are led by Stonekeeper's rebellious daughter Meechee who gets Migo to go explore the world below. Migo ends up finding a human named Percy who is trying to save his nature documentary show from getting cancelled and sees this as the opportunity to put him back on top. Migo escorts Percy up to the yeti village and blows everyone's minds, but a chat with Stonekeeper clues Migo in on the real reason their kind isolated themselves from mankind because they are seen as monsters to the fearful humans, even though the yetis are at least three times bigger than them. Meechee decides to take Percy back to the human city since he can't survive in the higher altitude, and she blows the yetis existence, even though Percy first manages to cover them up pretending the whole thing to be a publicity stunt. Migo comes clean on the real history of his people, and they decide to make peace with the humans which is first made with some hesitancy, although they eventually put aside their differences.

Smallfoot is up to scratch as far as animated films of the 2010s with some fair original songs and some good-natured cartoon frolics. It's fine enough to be a family feature, although most parents might find it not worth rewatching. The animation quality fits the specs well with slightly original character designs even if they look like they were taken out of a Dr. Seuss book. For the first of a trinity of sasquatch shenanigans, Smallfoot carries its idea adroitly and has a sizeable amount of originality in its setup which most animation devotees should be pleased by.