Abominable Movie Review

The following is a movie review “Abominable” by Marc Primo.

Release date: 27 September (USA)

Director: Jill Colton

Language: English

Production Companies: DreamWorks Animation, Pearl Studio

Producers: Suzanne Buirgy, Dave Polsky

Here’s one that has been making the headlines not for its sweet tale of a young girl leading a Yeti back home but for a single inconsistency of global proportions.

Jill Colton’s adorable animated film Abominable raised some controversy due to an appearance of the highly disputed Nine-Dash Line. The demarcation line is an undefined and contested border used by China to claim a major part of the South China Sea and its periphery including Scarborough Shoal, Paracel Islands, Pratsa Islands, Macclesfield Bank, and Spartlys Islands.

Because of the controversy, theater runs in a number of Asian countries including Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia have been affected with some even banning the film altogether.

However, Abominable is one of the fresher animated features that will delight both children and adults amid the dry spell of recent releases. Somehow, the film is able to capture the short-attention span of young viewers with its impressive graphics and snappy humor, while presenting a heartwarming tale that’s not too juvenile for adult tastes.

Yi (Chloe Bennett) is a Chinese teenage girl who is impervious to superficial things and very much unlike other kids her age. Another thing that sets Yi apart from her peers is her penchant for earning money-- doing odd jobs for neighbors and town stores so she could save up her pennies and stack them on her family’s apartment rooftop. She needed to save so that she can someday go on a trip previously planned by her recently deceased father. His death is perhaps what pulls Yi into seclusion, playing her violin alone at the rooftops now that she can no longer perform duets with her father.

One day, as Yi is up on the rooftop, she stumbles upon a sleeping Yeti who had escaped incarceration at the hands of eccentric billionaire Mr. Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and her trusted but indifferent zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson). Their entailing friendship leads Yi to seek help from her friends, who gamely tag along on a mission to get a Yeti named Everest back home.

Culton’s writing and direction for Abominable was carefully designed to appeal to kids of all ages and free itself from annoying and over the top elements. The film’s visually stunning details succeed in taking viewers on a monumental journey without capitalizing too much on never before seen CGI. The formula is not really new but Abominable possesses a unique novelty that triumphs on the screen much like how E.T., Super 8, or the more recent series Stranger Things did so respectively in the past.

That novelty allows adults to reminisce their own childhood emotions, wonder, and awe through a storytelling approach that doesn’t rely on ethnicity. Somehow, Chinese characters in a very Hollywood storyline works for audiences disregarding of course that incidental map scene. It works in a universally relatable way even though Culton gave ample emphasis on Chinese culture and ideologies to establish plot.

What’s more beautiful about the film is how it takes viewers through the seasons, letting them bask in its splendid colors. An array of blues and pastels for winter, the yellows and green of autumn, and pinks and deep purples as backdrops for the more sentimental scenes all effectively convey the film’s entire mood and atmosphere.

But the colors and graphics are not all that’s great about Abominable. The string arrangements of composer Rupert Gregson-Williams further draw out an experiential plethora of emotions that will pull any viewer into the story.

Overall, Abominable and all its ingredients make for a sweet and engaging tale many audiences have been waiting for. All that, less the usual sugarcoated excess. It’s sad that one small scene triggered some countries, but perhaps if decision-makers gave it a chance and watched the film in its entirety, they’d sink back deep into their inner child and reconsider.

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