Smallfoot – Review

Smallfoot film review; animated

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Runtime: 96 minutes

Smallfoot is an allegory about how religions try to control us, and how our best response is with love for our natural world and fellow creature, no matter how well we understand them or not, with a clear statement on race relations in the United States (and worldwide). There was a brief period of time where I thought it was going to be a silly film about a smallfoot. Instead, the Warner Animation Group has produced a film that might challenge adults more than it does children. But this comes during a period of time where that is probably more necessary than it is surprising.

Migo (Channing Tatum) is a yeti who loves his hometown and loves singing about it, ignoring the warnings of the local skeptics who wonder if maybe a society governed by a set of rules carved into stones might be hiding something. Migo informs them he’s pretty sure that the world really does rest on the back of a yak. “What’s under that?” they ask him. “It’s yaks all the way down”, Migo brushes off, doing his best to shock Bertrand Russell. Migo’s father (Danny DeVito) is the local gong-ringer. His job is to wake the town. They do this by flying into it with their head, which inevitably leaves them all short and likely brain-damaged. Lest we never speak of the crazy uncle and his hammer theory. Migo eventually sees a “smallfoot” after missing the gong on a practice run to train him for accepting his station in life, because he’s distracted by love interest, Meechee (Zendaya). Meechee’s father, who happens to be the stonekeeper of this apparently lovely village (voiced by Common), expels Migo from the society for daring to ask questions or suggest that there are things they don’t already know. And thus begins his quest to find a smallfoot and redeem his name. Luckily there is a down-on-their-luck nature documentarian at the base of the mountain, Percy Patterson (James Corden), looking to sell-out and is just as keen to meet a “mythical creature” as that mythical creature him. Unfortunately, they are going to have trouble understanding each other, with humans coming with a loaded past of indiscretions against the yeti.

Smallfoot is co-directed and partially penned by Karey Kirkpatrick, who has contributed to animated features before. On the surface level, his Over the Hedge series seems most relevant to contributing here, but his screenwriting work on James and the Giant Peach (1996) and Chicken Run (2000) shines through more. But perhaps most applicable was his adaptation of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005). Kirkpatrick penned the screenplay with Adams prior to the Adams’s death in 2001. Adams is well known for his challenges to religion, including one of my personal favourite thought experiments: The Sentient Puddle. In it, a puddle finds itself contemplating its own existence after the rain, and it determines that the hole it resides in is perfect for them, therefore it must have been designed for them. Then it begins to evaporate. I can imagine writing with Douglas Adams would plant the seeds for a film preoccupied with challenging dominant worldviews. Smallfoot, in many ways, is about puddles realising they don’t have authority over the holes they happen to find themselves in.

While the character designs didn’t charm as much as other animated films, this is a very well-made movie. As far as what happens goes, it is all very smooth. There is something going on in every frame of this movie, and you can tell that it has been made with love and energy. The film also includes quite a few in-universe expository songs. I prefer these over music that is clearly designed to be a hit and is churned out to cross-promote an artist. Recently I saw The Darkest Minds, and every now and then you’d get a song playing over the top of the characters walking or driving, to transition scenes, but also to get the song playing in a film seen by millions of people. James Corden’s car karaoke annoys me as the shallowest of entertainment, but him singing over the top of “Under Pressure” to his business partner doesn’t bother me nearly as much, because it depends so much on context. Common also has an expository rap about the history of the yeti religion and why he pulls the blindfold over the eyes of his people. Songs like this are harder work, and they immerse you in the story, more so than reminding an old soul like me that everything is business. And of course, this all goes to fashion an entertainment product regardless of whether it is trans-media or not, but it makes me feel better. Hell, maybe it’s just preference.

It may sound cynical, but it is hard to sit in a film and completely surrender yourself to it sometimes. Many of the concerns that my brain raised in Smallfoot were actually addressed by the movie. For example, as I began to question why everyone in this film about separate worlds colliding was speaking English so conveniently, the film reveals that we have an “in” to their meaning, but from the human perspective, bigfoots roar, and from the bigfoot perspective, smallfoots squeak. I was frustrated at some of the pacing of the Percy Patterson characters’ flippant motivations. He’s, frankly, irritating and disgusting. My head canon, however, tells me that this might be the point behind the character—to highlight how even the “good humans” have major flaws when it comes to conviction. Even Patterson’s partner, Brenda (Yara Shahidi), who responds to Percy’s desperation with disgust, responds to his success with jubilation. I caught myself typing “girlfriend” to describe her, but their relationship is wisely not commented on any more than it needs to be by the film. Too many movies aimed at children try to force their characters into relationship boxes, but I digress: I may be giving Smallfoot too much credit in assuming that these flippant flaws are intentional. They could possibly just be rushed writing on a film that doesn’t feel its human characters as important as its giant, cuddly, marketable ones. But it is possible to suggest something about what idiosyncratic messes we humans are.

The pacing of Smallfoot feels a little off sometimes. Especially in the early stages of the film, it felt like it was a snowball rushing to get momentum and become large enough to get to the themes it really wants to promote. For the first act of the film, I found myself believing that it was one of those children’s films that has contempt for kids. There seems to be a lot of goats scratching their butts on things. Well, maybe that was only one scene, but it felt like it happened a lot. Perhaps this is just how comedy for kids is pacing itself these days? Maybe I am the Seymour Skinner in this scenario, and the one who is completely out of touch? No, it is the movie that is wrong. I will defend my stance by pointing out that very few people actually laughed during my screening, although the movie is funny. It’s packed with witty lines—it just doesn’t give them time to breathe. Maybe it hopes that this will lend itself to re-watches? And the expository songs explain themselves.

The voice actors all hold up their end. Heading in, I only was only aware of Channing Tatum’s role. He gets to sing, and it leads to neither a classic banger nor a musical number anyone should be ashamed of. He’s proven himself to be a talent willing to try new things and put himself in compromising positions that don’t depend on his looks, pre-existing fan-base, or physique. It’s not a powerhouse performance in line with Dwayne Johnson’s in Moana (2016), but I’m sure Channing Tatum will work again. James Corden is less irritating in his role as Percy than he is on his television show, even though his character is irritating. But that says more about the script and Corden’s show, respectively. I’m sure he’s doing fine. LeBron James delivers his lines with a punch that make me want to hear him do more voice acting. The biggest surprise was hearing Justin Roiland in the film. It’s interesting that between Rick and Morty seasons, he’d choose to do a project like this.

Smallfoot is more important than it is good. It spreads valuable messages from a well-animated pulpit. It could have used a few re-writes. Not because it is missing anything particular, but just because it is so assured it steps on its own small feet sometimes. It’s hard to imagine someone not getting something from the smorgasbord it offers. The cynical that may be bored by its aversion to sitting still are likely to be taken in by what it preaches, while those affronted by its moral content should be entertained by the moving pictures. Smallfoot ends up, improbably, being a better movie than itself. There’s a moment where some characters cross the line and stage a quiet protest in defence of something they believe. Children should like it, and adults that don’t should grow up. There is an exchange towards the tail-end of the film that I think sums it up rather nicely:
“Wait… so we didn’t fall out of a sky snail’s butt?”
“Probably not.”

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