Abominable (2019 Film) Review
After finding and healing an injured yeti on the roof of her apartment building in Shanghai, teenage girl Yi, along with friends Jin and Peng, journey to Mount Everest to reunite the yeti with his family. In the process, the quartet must evade the forces who would capture the yeti for greedy purposes.
Chloe Bennet voices Yi, Tenzing Norgay Trainor voices Jin, and Albert Tsai voices Peng. Eddie Izzard voices a wealthy businessman named Burnish while Sarah Paulson voices Dr. Zara, a zoologist. Tsai Chin and Michelle Wong voice Yi’s grandmother and mother, respectively.
Jill Culton scripted and directed “Abominable.” Suzanne Buirgy and Dave Polsky produced the film. Universal Pictures through DreamWorks Animation and Pearl Studio distributed "Abominable."
Overall Thoughts
Talk about a case where marketing, once again, undersells its product, because "Abominable" was far from abominable. The trailers, while possessing its share of neat ideas, made it seem like just another animated comedy. While not perfect, this film is another top-tier film from DreamWorks Animation and earns its place beside "Toy Story 4," "The Hidden World," "Missing Link," and others as some of the best animated films of the year. In terms of animation quality, while this film does not have a smorgasbord of background detail, it's both designed and shot with remarkable attention. The scenery is colorful and the cinematography showcases each location with a sense of awe and beauty. The human characters have appropriately stylized designs that aim for a fantasy look, rather than a photo-real look. This may not seem too impressive, but with this being the thirty-seventh film from DreamWorks Animation, a different style helps maintain variety. Also, considering the studio's mixed past with animating human characters, this is a significant benefit to this feature. Credit for the film's animation design, in addition, has to be awarded to Pearl Studio, a production company that specializes in Chinese-themed media. One need only look at this film's animation to know of their involvement and the small details that they certainly provided.
While DreamWorks reuses a familiar storytelling template, writer/director Jill Culton fills "Abominable" with the same spirit that only DreamWorks can provide. The relationship between the three young characters, mainly Yi, and Everest is reminiscent of the "How to Train Your Dragon" series, but is made different through the drama integrated in the story. Yi suffers from a common problem in family films: deadparentitis. She had planned to travel the world with her father, but when he dies, that dream is harder for her to achieve for mainly emotional reasons. Yi's family life with her mother and grandmother, who is laugh-out-loud funny through Tsai Chin's voice work, is strained because of her distance, a result of her being unable to cope with the loss. Going on this journey with Everest enables to her to overcome her heartache, which she does in the film's best sequence. Jin and Peng are there for more comedic reasons. They're funny and even have some touching moments, but character-wise, there's isn't as much to them as there is to Yi.
With the mention of humor, the film's comedy is great. Some jokes, including that of the snake variety, should not work, but the film proves they can. "Abominable" balances the touching with the hilarious remarkably well without creating any tonal inconsistencies. Now, that's the sign of a skilled film. While the trailers opted to use the few juvenile jokes to market it, the comedy in the actual product is otherwise highbrow. This isn't another "Boss Baby"-type situation where the humor is constantly and so overtly crude that you're continually frustrated by its laziness.
The film's musical score is one of its most important elements, primarily because it's a part of Yi's personality. As she travels throughout the film, Yi caries her treasured violin and will occasionally play it as her way of expressing herself and what she's feeling. The music, composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams, captures the raw emotions of her character without feeling cheep or manipulative. DreamWorks Animation has a track record of pairing their films with great scores and "Abominable" is no exception.
As much as I'd like to continue praising it, there is one issue with the film. The antagonists are way too simplified. At first, with how sympathetic they are portrayed, they don't seem like bad people in the slightest. However, around the halfway point of the film, there's a sudden bait-and-switch where one character starts acting out nefarious plans for basic reasons involving money. By the way, this character becomes completely comfortable with child murder with no such transition to that level of danger. It was not only forced and jarring, but the film missed out on an opportunity to have no bad guys, just goodhearted people involved in a misunderstanding.
With the mention of humor, the film's comedy is great. Some jokes, including that of the snake variety, should not work, but the film proves they can. "Abominable" balances the touching with the hilarious remarkably well without creating any tonal inconsistencies. Now, that's the sign of a skilled film. While the trailers opted to use the few juvenile jokes to market it, the comedy in the actual product is otherwise highbrow. This isn't another "Boss Baby"-type situation where the humor is constantly and so overtly crude that you're continually frustrated by its laziness.
The film's musical score is one of its most important elements, primarily because it's a part of Yi's personality. As she travels throughout the film, Yi caries her treasured violin and will occasionally play it as her way of expressing herself and what she's feeling. The music, composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams, captures the raw emotions of her character without feeling cheep or manipulative. DreamWorks Animation has a track record of pairing their films with great scores and "Abominable" is no exception.
As much as I'd like to continue praising it, there is one issue with the film. The antagonists are way too simplified. At first, with how sympathetic they are portrayed, they don't seem like bad people in the slightest. However, around the halfway point of the film, there's a sudden bait-and-switch where one character starts acting out nefarious plans for basic reasons involving money. By the way, this character becomes completely comfortable with child murder with no such transition to that level of danger. It was not only forced and jarring, but the film missed out on an opportunity to have no bad guys, just goodhearted people involved in a misunderstanding.
Rating: ★★★½
Conclusion
"Abominable" is absolutely worth a trip to your local cinema. DreamWorks Animation is one of the studios that turn out great feature films, but for some reason, that rarely is reflected in their box office returns. Go give it a chance, support it, and find out for yourself if you like it.
This has been my review of “Abominable." I hope you enjoyed it. Have you seen the film? If you have, share your thoughts in the comments below. Should you feel inclined, feel free to recommend a film for me to review next. Thank you for reading, I'm Dallin, your resident film fanatic, and I'll return soon with another review.
This has been my review of “Abominable." I hope you enjoyed it. Have you seen the film? If you have, share your thoughts in the comments below. Should you feel inclined, feel free to recommend a film for me to review next. Thank you for reading, I'm Dallin, your resident film fanatic, and I'll return soon with another review.
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