The plot: Migo (Channing Tatum) lives in a mountain village with the rest of his Yeti tribe, but after a mysterious metallic vessel lands on the island, he comes face-to-face with a creature he had only heard about in legend: The Smallfoot. Said Smallfoot, struggling TV personality Percy (James Corden), is also aghast that he has discovered a creature that he didn't even know existed. However, as their paths converge and their respective societies react to the other's existence, it seems that things are only going to get stranger from here.
Tatum is really damn effective here, handling
his musical numbers with a certain quiet earnestness, his comedic moments with
the conviction one would expect from considering his vast pedigree, and even
when he gets called on to bring the drama, it is amazingly resonant. Corden…
okay, considering the other animated films he’s been attached to, this is
another situation where he doesn’t have much further down to go as far as what he
brings to the production. He does just fine as part of the main plot, and while
his own musical number is easily the most jarring to be found here, he serves
his purpose well enough. For him, that is praise.
Lebron James, Gina Rodriguez
and Ely Henry as the members of the S.E.S. (Smallfoot Exists, Suckers!, and
yes, there’s another name but Henry's Flem got at least one thing right) do nicely as part of the larger dynamic, while not
standing out that much on their own. Or, in the case of Flem’s consistent
irritation that even the film itself is highly aware of, not standing out for
the right reasons. Danny DeVito as Migo’s father handles his personal arc very nicely and his scenes with
Tatum make for some of the harder-hitting moments of the while production. Oh,
and rapper Common as the Stonekeeper of the Yetis might be one of my favourite performances of the
entire year. Why? Well, we’ll get to that in a bit.
Co-director Jason Reisig has a lot of Dreamworks experience
under his belt, even working on their first animated production Antz. That goes
some way to explain why this film looks as much like a Dreamworks production as
it does. A lot of rounded-off bounciness, decent hair textures, a certain
amount of background detail but without the added joy of sight gags; it’s good
but it ultimately only serves the narrative, rather than standing out on its
own artistic merits. File this along with Storks in terms of Warner Animation
Group kind of struggling for their own identity outside of LEGO movies.
Of
course, the animation is only half of the package here: Not that the marketing
really gets into this, but this film is also a musical. And with Heitor Pereira
(Minions, The Angry Birds Movie) providing the tunes and co-director Karey Kirkpatrick (Chicken Run, Over The Hedge, The Smurfs 2) bringing the lyrics, the results are definitely unexpected but mostly stick to
the general vibe of “okay”. Perfection and Wonderful Life contain a lot of very
plain, clearly-written-for-children phrasing that only does the bare minimum for
the respective songs, although Tatum and Zendaya do decently with the material. Corden’s song Percy’s Pressure marks the serious low
point for the music and the film as a whole, as it is literally just a karaoke
version of Under Pressure with new lyrics. Rarely do I think that Ice Ice Baby
would be a more pleasant outcome of those opening bass notes.
And then… we have Let It Lie, Common’s solo musical number
and the point where this film goes from merely pleasant to absolutely incredible. It
serves as what could arguably be considered the villain song of the film, and
yet it’s not actually that villainous. Because depicting the Stonekeeper as the out-and-out bad guy would be far too easy, and as this film goes on, it’s clear
that it isn’t interested in easy answers. In fact, more so than anything to do
with yetis or legends or being crapped out of a giant space yak, this script
seems most interested in our innate curiosity. The part of us that wondered “hey,
where did that big ball of light in the sky come from?” all those many aeons
ago.
As we learn about the Yeti culture, dictated by the Stones,
we see a familiar kind of creation myth and resulting practices that shows a
society built on routine as enforced by a single authority figure. Anything outside of
their village just doesn’t exist, partly because they don’t know about it but
mainly because they aren’t allowed to know about it. When yeti and human
eventually collide, and everything these creatures knew about their lives is
shaken, we get a look at how much the control of information affects cultures
of people.
That on its own would be more than enough for a family film,
but this goes one step further and looks into why these rules were literally written in stone. Why the yeti
society is the way it is and, more pointedly, why the lies that rule their
lives are in place. This is where Let It Lie comes in, and aside from bringing
a deliciously-layered composition into the mix and letting Common break out his award-winning flow, it also
asserts that while knowledge is indeed powerful, it is also a heavy burden. Not
knowing about how the world around us truly functions is something of a
blissful existence, and many would prefer it to confronting brutal and
uncompromising truths. It brings up how certain doctrines keep us restrained
from truly learning about our surroundings, but it also admits that those
doctrines were created for a reason and how learning the truth can throw a
person’s entire understanding of their world out of whack.
It doesn’t outright
excuse the idea of lying on this grand a scale, as the film’s endorsement of
healthy scepticism puts the nail in that prospect, but shows a weirdly nuanced
take on the notion of questioning authority and supposed "common knowledge". I say “weirdly” because a film
that shows this much willingness in highlighting how important is for people to
ask questions, even if we don’t like the answers, is astoundingly intelligent.
More so than many a film made for more mature audiences, and considering the
intellectual climate nowadays, it’s grown-ass adults that would benefit the
most from this kind of message. Or, perhaps, the next generation of adults.
All in all… I am honestly stunned at how good this is. The
acting ranges from adequate to outright heart-rending, the animation is mostly decent
and more than a little Dreamworks-inspired, and the music is pleasant but
mostly forgettable. However, the real jewel in this film’s crown is its
mesmerisingly astute observations about truth, how it is perceived, how it
affects those who know it, and how far some will go to outright hide it, either
from others or even from themselves. This is the kind of forward-thinking
parable that I have all the respect
for, and honestly, this is just another example of why I am always willing to
give “kids’ films” a chance. Because sometimes, they can depict some truly
smart ideas, ones with the ability to resonate beyond all age gaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment