ANI-MOVIES, *Abominable

During the span of a single year, three totally separate animated movies about sasquatch cryptids came out in 2018-19. One was Smallfoot by Warner Bros. with the other being Missing Link from Laika, but Abominable from Universal Studios was done as a joint production between DreamWorks and Pearl Studio who most Americans might know from later on making the Netflix original movies Over The Moon and The Monkey King. The Chinese-based animation studio helped DreamWorks on several other titles like Turbo, Home, Trolls, and The Croods, but has gone on to creating animated features of their own. The plot is original written by director Jill Culton, a former Pixar animator who became the first female director of a feature-length CGI movie in Sony's Open Season. The film is your standard kid-meets-creature story, except this one takes place in modern day China, so it was able to see the big country from the point of view of Gen-Z children. In some ways, this movie was able to represent the dynamics of a Chinese family better than Turning Red did.

Starting in downtown Shanghai, a young yeti has been captured by reclusive rich explorer, Mr. Burish, who spent most of his life trying to capture one of the big hairy fellows and proving it to the whole world. The yeti escapes and happens upon the rooftop getaway of Yi, a teenager who spends most of her time doing several odd jobs trying to earn money for a trip she was originally going to take with her late father. Yi has a talent for playing violin even though she only does it when thinking about her father. Yi takes care of the yeti she calls Everest after she figures the creature comes from the Himalayas when looking at a billboard photo. She vows to return Everest home, and her neighbors Peng and Jin get roped along after Burnish's men track them leaving town on a cargo ship. They reach a port and are carried off in a crate by truck, but end up on their own in a forest where Everest shows off his magical powers being able to manipulate nature by creating fruits appear out of nowhere, making the landscape move like a wave that they ride in a boat, and enlarging dandelions so that they can float across the mountains. Burnish and his crew eventually track Everest and his teen friends to a bridge leading back to the yeti home, even though Burnish suddenly has a change of heart and allows them all to go. At this point, the movie decides to pull a bait-and-switch villain which was a huge cliche of animated movies of the time as its revealed Burnish's zoologist Dr. Zara is really planning on taking Everest on her own and selling him off to the highest bidder. Yi's violin playing manages to indirectly free Everest and her friends causing Zara to drive off a cliff. The kids see Everest home and then plan for their possible next adventure thanks to some supplies from the reformed Mr. Burnish.

Abominable was a big enough hit for DreamWorks that they managed to continue the story in a sequel TV series on Netflix. The movie has some fair characters in it, even though Pearl Studio recycled the annoying little kid Peng for their film Over The Moon as the main character's bratty stepbrother. The cast is equally acceptable, especially Eddie Izzard as Burnish who makes a career of playing well-meaning antagonists, and of course James Hong makes a quick but memorable cameo. My only real complaint about this film is it's guilty of the same crime that numerous movie trailers do of having a great cover version of a pop song like Go Your Own Way that doesn't appear at all on the soundtrack. The violin take on this great song never showed up in the movie at all, and that's a real shame.