Chloe Bennet plays Yi in “Abominable” that came out this year. Photo from IMDB.
“Abominable,” which is the latest animated film from DreamWorks Animation follows a girl named Ye who discovers a Yeti living on her roof before vowing to bring him back home to Mount Everest.
The film follows the basic structure of a modern-day animated film with characters going on a journey somewhere out of the ordinary and yet this film utilizes its story to its advantage. “Abominable” is a pretty good animated adventure with enough well written characters and gorgeous animation to make up for its mediocre humor and cliched villains.
The film has the charm and heart that is missing from a lot of recent animated films due to it’s mainly likable characters and subtle moments strategically placed throughout the film. Particularly the characters of Yi (Chloe Bennet), and Everest (Joseph Izzo) are very well developed without relying on constant exposition that tells how the characters are feeling.
“Abominable” has a lot of slow, quiet moments that really invest the audience in the characters in-between its otherwise fast pace. When Yi first encounters Everest on her roof hideout simply uses the music and facial expressions of the characters to bring suspense.
Furthermore, the film utilizes a lot of beautiful background animation and magic elements without overbearing its welcome. The magic elements of Everest feel earnest and interesting because they both improve the flow of the story while not making anything easy on the character’s journey. Even the generic comic relief characters of Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Peng (Albert Tsai) are given just enough development and human qualities to care more about them than their thinly defined character traits in the opening.
In contrast, the film does falter with its over the top villains that seem to have the range of yelling or being quietly devious for very little reason. The film even takes it’s time to really get into its interesting adventure with its mediocre first 30 minutes.
While the film’s opening moments of the Yeti’s escape are visually interesting, the film takes a bit too long and meanders on a lot of jokes that just do not work within the otherwise kind of dark story. One moment towards the films climax goes in a very unexpectedly dark direction that really throws its audience off balance based on what they have seen prior.
“Abominable” does suffer from inconsistent humor that barely works for its older viewers because it is either very obvious or slightly clever sight gags such as a whooping snake that keeps showing up throughout the film. Overall, “Abominable” is pretty good animated adventure with well-developed characters, gorgeous animation and some necessary quiet moments that help make its standard story, lackluster humor and cliched villains slightly entertaining by its end. For me, “Abominable” is a seven out of 10.