Abominable Review
It has been over three years since Dreamworks and Pearl Studios co-produced Kung Fu Panda 3 together and wrapped up the trilogy filled with colourful scenery and gorgeous animation within a Chinese fantasy setting. But now the two studios have joined forces once again to produce their latest film Abominable. In a year already filled with brilliant animated offerings from the biggest names in the animation industry, does this film stand tall among this year’s already impressive line up?
Set in modern day China, we see loner teenager Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennett) working hard and being proactive as she tries to get money together for a trip around China that she and her late father once wanted to do. But she soon encounters a mute, childlike yeti named Everest hiding on her roof from Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and his gang of bumbling animal capturers. Soon their friendship blossoms and with the suspicions of two of her neighbours Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and his younger cousin Ping (Albert Tsai), they all get whisked away on a journey across the country to return the yeti home to the top of Mount Everest with the bad guys following closely on their tail.
The film offers audiences a window into some of the most beautiful settings from China, from towering statues of ancient deities to lush tropical jungles to high mountain peaks and the film does show a lot with a fast paced narrative. However, this does prove to be a double edged sword as it makes the story feel very familiar, often times rushed, and doesn’t give us as much time to focus on the sub plots and secondary characters as I would have hoped. Even with some unexpected twists and turns, the film at times feels like it’s rushing past them to reach the climax.
And that is unfortunately the biggest fault with the film as some of the secondary characters either don’t grow; or the ones that do have other dimensions, the audience gets so swept away that it doesn’t appear natural to them. Despite Eddie Izzard’s brilliant performance and the animators creating a broad range of emotions for the antagonist Burnish, his character development doesn’t quite appear as genuine or natural and instead feels a bit forced and manufactured.
While there is growth for certain characters, such as Jin’s love of social media presence and trends getting tested in the great outdoors, and Yin accepting what family and home really means, the running time doesn’t open up these emotional moments as much as they do for the brilliant scenes and colour palette. Even Everest the Yeti doesn’t get as much character development apart from his childish behaviour and magical mischief displaying adorable expressions that do not go anywhere further. Dreamworks has proven in the past that you can have complex character emotions through animals and beasts and give enough screen time for everyone while telling a natural story, it’s a shame that Abominable feels like it has more style than substance.
Despite my criticism with the narrative and the character portrayals, the same definitely can’t be said about the animation from Dreamworks and Pearl Studios as this is without question one of the most beautiful representations of China that I have seen in film for some time. While the story may want to take audiences quickly to each new and vibrant location, it knows how to take it’s time when it gets there and really shows off how varied and breath-taking the country can be.
This is especially true when Everest’s magic is used and reacts to the more natural settings around him as well as how he responds to Yin’s violin playing. This gives an already lovely scene a transformative appearance and change of emotions in the flick on a switch. One minute we can see our protagonists sailing through waves of golden fields to create an illusion of the ocean; while the next minute we have a sombre moment with them all riding on clouds swimming across mountain peaks as the sun rises in the sky.
It’s also brilliant to see more representation on the big screen with a majority of Asian characters being leads, especially for a big budget animated film, and the studios should be proud of their diversity of characters.
While Abominable may be a wonderfully animated and a gorgeous film to watch, the same can’t quite be said about the extremely recognisable story patterns and lack of development for the supporting characters. This is a great example of style over substance and I hope that the studios work together again as they really can produce a wonderfully animated world.
Released on 11th October 2019, Abominable is out in UK cinemas now.