Abominable is why Dreamworks Animation can be so frustrating at times. While Pixar and Disney push their storytelling with every new film, Dreamworks is content to cater to their kid audience, and deliver something simple and forgettable. The ingredients are all there to be something special: pet like creature, magical powers, parental loss, cute sidekicks. But Abominable settles for C+ storytelling with A+ visuals, delivering a B effort, or what Dreamworks calls, its lane.
Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson) are scientists on the search for the abominable snowman, to gain some credibility in the scientific community again. Before arriving in Hong Kong, the creature escapes, fleeing to young Yi’s (Chloe Bennet) rooftop. Yi bonds with the creature, and makes her mission to get Everest to his Himalayan home. Along for the ride are Yi’s friends: wanna be basketballer Peng (Albert Tsai), and pretty boy Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor).
The visuals are the highlight of Abominable, ably distracting the kids from the bleh story. Hong Kong looks pretty cool, an Asian metropolis with colors and light shows. But a creature with magical powers is obviously ripe for all sorts of creative expression. The most stunning visuals happen in natural environments, taking advantage of some of China’s lush landscapes. The best moments involve taking movements from one part of nature and applying them to another, say for example, grassland prairies turn into waves of flowers. You can get through the lulls in the story just waiting for Yi to play her violin, or Everest to glow blue again.
Can you tell I’m not super keen on this story? Dreamworks screenplays usually have a goal of appealing to young kids so the movies usually abide by 2 rules: keep it light, and make it for EVERYONE at all costs. Anyone who’s seen a kids movie will recognize almost all the beats of Abominable. Here’s the thing: there’s some scary moments in Abominable, and a few really sad parts…which the movie undercuts immediately by pushing the tone back to light right away. This means zero emotional attachment to this movie whatsoever, basically because none of the character moments hit. There are exactly 2 good things about Abominable’s screenplay: the villain handling is clever, and the running gag with the snakes. You could argue that the snakes leave more of a lasting impact than ANY of the characters in this movie. Not good, since they are in approximately 2% of the film.
Abominable is a good intro film to introduce a kid to the concept of a theater. It’s harmless, it’s over in 90 minutes, and its story is VERY easy to follow. Plus as a parent, you might be able to get a nap in. Fair warning though, there will be a LOT of whooping going on in the car ride home.