Smallfoot (2018 Film) Review

Having experimented with Legos and storks, Warner Animation Group's latest film tells a tale of many yetis.

Channing Tatum leads "Smallfoot" as Migo, a young male yeti who sets out on a journey to prove the existence of the Smallfoot, known to us as humans. James Corden voices Percy and is that human who crosses paths with Migo and hijinks ensue. Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Gina Rodriguez, and Danny DeVito provide the voices of many yetis.

"Smallfoot" is directed by Karey Kirkpatrick. He and Clare Sera served as writers on the film. Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra, and John Requa produced "Smallfoot." Warner Bros. Pictures distributes this film through their production company Warner Animation Group.

Introduction

When it comes to animated studios, Warner Animation Group is one of the more innocuous out there. Admittedly, most animated studios will tend to release good and bad films, but Warner Animation has this habit of following a great film with a sub-par film. Just look at their track record. It broke out into the field with the revolutionary "The Lego Movie," earning massive credibility and favorable comparisons to "Toy Story" as one of the top-tier animated films out there. With such remarkable success, two years later, the studio released "Storks," a film that, putting it lightly, did not feel like it was made by the studio that made "The Lego Movie." This bad taste did not last because a mere five months later, they rose back up with "The Lego Batman Movie," only to fall again when "The Lego Ninjago Movie" came out. Looking at the pattern, "Smallfoot" is positioned to be a good film from the studio although with it being a musical featuring yetis, I'm not quite sure if it's going to be that good. Despite that, nobody thought a movie about a plastic toy from Denmark would be any good, so here's hoping.

Overall Thoughts

"Smallfoot" is no "The Lego Movie." It's also no "Storks" or "The Lego Ninjago Movie." The movie is perfectly set in that area of being a little above a middle-of-the-road family film. Technically, everything in the story has been done before to some degree. At least with the basic set-up that the movie is built upon. That's not a huge problem because the best part of "Smallfoot" is that it's more intelligent than you might expect. On the surface, it's story is nothing that exciting, but then you throw in the moral and what it's trying to teach and the film proves to be a lot more interesting. As a whole, the argument of the film is about how much should you lie to protect others and how complete honesty isn't always the perfect solution. It's potent, almost to the point that it makes "Smallfoot" more about message than story. That would've been a bad thing had I not found myself getting into it whenever it was the primary focus. "So how is this not on-par with 'The Lego Movie,' Dallin?" It is not always the main focus and the movie throws unnecessary curveballs at itself. I also find it ironic how a story built around the subject of truth was conceptually tied to one of the world's most prevailing conspiracy theories. That summarization could possibly ruin the whole film for you, but having come up with it, I still really enjoy this movie.

Back to the curveballs, "Smallfoot" has the unfortunate ability to follow lines of interesting dialogue with yetis using modern talk, repeating the same poop jokes, and including a certain misplaced song where James Cordon's character, Percy, sings a variation of "Under Pressure." It's not terribly consistent and I would've liked this movie more if it dialed down the things that make it contemporary and put more effort into the material that makes "Smallfoot" more timeless. The characters are blank slates. A majority of them are generic and disinteresting, with the exception of Channing Tatum's Migo and Common's The Stonekeeper. They were the ones that I was glad to know more about because the movie allows us to slowly learn them, not sum them up with a singular quirk right when we meet them. The voice actors all do good work, but for the actors playing the disinteresting characters, they seem like bland and, in a bad way, obvious choices for throwaway roles. Their characters were so unremarkable that I forgot their names when I left the theater.

Animation/Soundtrack

Whenever they make their "Lego" movies, Warner Animation delivers innovative technical work. That is, with their first two films. I felt that "Ninjago" got a little lazy in some areas. Anyhow, when they're not playing with Legos, the studio puts out work that's less impressive. It still looks great, but the animation is nothing beyond the technique of your standard animated film. It's sights are pleasing to eye, with the tangible snowy mountains, but I hardly found any of the animation different from other films released today. Where studios like Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks push the animation frontier with each new film, "Smallfoot" is content doing the just enough, but that doesn't detract from the simple fact that it still looks great.

I haven't been a fan of Hollywood's more recent musicals. At first, I was confused about the decision to make "Smallfoot." Right from the first song, I knew why the choice was made and though I understood it, that doesn't mean I entirely liked it.

I could substitute the name of each of the songs by summarizing exactly what they each try to get across to the audience because they make it unbelievably obvious. I won't because that wouldn't be any fun and the songs, despite being on the formulaic side, are just that. Thematically, they're nothing new, but the music itself and lyrics are, and it's the energy of the singers that make the songs worth tapping your foot along to. Heck, I found myself singing along to some of them.

For highlights, I think Zendaya was chosen for her part just so that she could sing the character's song, "Wonderful Life," which utilized some rousing instruments and made a powerful use of its lyrics. I'm not a huge fan of rap, but Common's character's song, "Let It Lie," used the technique to the benefit of the entire film. "Let It Lie" is where the complex moral of the story shined through the most. The remaining songs were perfectly average. They didn't stand out to me in any way, with the exception of James Cordon's variation of "Under Pressure," "Percy's Pressure." I would be remiss if I did not elaborate on my initial thought. Not only was the song shoehorned in, but the movie grinds to a halt to have this song that only spells out Cordon's character when we knew already what kind of guy he was. If this song wasn't present, the soundtrack and overall film would have flowed together more smoothly.

Grade: B-

Because "Smallfoot" is powered by a story with many surprises and memorable songs, it is worth seeing, but factor in the colorful animation and you have a film that almost gets away with its less-engaging characters and the uneven narrative.

"Smallfoot" has been in theaters for a little over a month now, so either you've seen it already or you have not. Even though I recommend that you see it, it's not one that's worth rushing to the cinemas to see. Besides, it's already leaving many theaters to make way for the upcoming slate of November releases. See "Smallfoot" when it comes to the many home media platforms.

Conclusion

With that, my review of "Smallfoot" ends. In the comments section, feel free to let me know what film you want me to review next as well as your thoughts of this review and the film in question. Thanks for reading, I'm Dallin, your resident Film Fanatic, and I'll see you again with another editorial.