Smallfoot Review

We're finishing off the September movie reviews on this blog and we do so with "Smallfoot," which almost topped the box office this past weekend, but got beat out by Kevin Hart's "Night School," which is a movie that I don't really care to see, given the reaction. I'm very picky with my comedies because a lot of the modern comedies simply don't make me laugh and most of the time Kevin Hart is someone who really annoys me, unless he's teamed up with actors, writers and/or directors who know how to put a bit of a leash on him and harness his energy into material that's worthwhile, which was apparently not the case for "Night School." Anyways, instead of seeing that, I opted for the kids movie. The weekend before, we were given "The House with a Clock in Its Walls," which is a movie more for the older kids as it tests the boundaries of what can be included in a PG movie. If that's not the type of movie you want your kids seeing, Warner Animation Group has provided you with "Smallfoot," a movie specifically targeted at the younger crowd that is perfectly safe and harmless. Will the older kids get bored with it? It's a possibility. But that's why it's nice that we have a good balance with this and "House with a Clock." There's options out there for kids of all ages to enjoy.

But what about the adults in the world without any kids? Is there anything worthwhile in here for them? Well, actually, yes. Depending on how much of a heart you have for family-friendly animated films. I went into this movie very hesitant. If it was a more crowded weekend and I had more going on, I probably would've just skipped this one without feeling too bad because I thought it looked very dumb and childish. Maybe it would please your 2-year-old, but would anyone else older than that really care? That said, it wasn't a busy weekend for me and there really wasn't any other options for me to see. As I said, I didn't care to see "Night School" after the critics trashed it. And I also wasn't quite interested enough in "Hell Fest" or that "Little Women" movie that I bet you probably didn't even see advertised unless you're crazy like me and go to the theaters super often. So I figured, what the heck. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who are at a young age. Maybe I can go see this one to give a recommendation to my siblings as to whether or not they should go take their kids to see it. But I didn't think I would like it. While I was watching, I fought it. I was refusing to give it a chance in my mind as it started, but a strange thing happened to me and I lost that fight.

The premise that the trailers advertised followed a Yeti that happens to run into a "smallfoot." A human being. But the rest of the Yeti don't believe him because they think the smallfoot don't exist. Get it? We in the real world are always trying to hunt down bigfoot, but most people claim they don't exist. What if the bigfoot, or Yeti, are doing the same thing with humans? IT'S FUNNY! Right? No, not really. I didn't think so based on the trailers. And I thought we were going to get a movie with our Yeti hunting down the smallfoot and them wandering around in the wilderness for most of the movie until they got back to the Yeti village. But that's not really what happened in the movie. I mean, that's the bare bones premise here. But what really captured me was that there was a lot more movie to this movie. It's like with the movie "Megamind." When I saw the trailer for that back in the day, I thought it was a Megamind vs. Metro Man movie. Either I was dumb or I didn't see all the trailers, because when I watched the movie for the first time, I remember being surprised when Megamind "beat" Metro Man in the first act and the movie thus became much different than I expected. That's kinda what I experienced here with "Smallfoot" because there's a lot more here than meets the eye.

First and foremost, the themes in the movie are surprisingly powerful. It reminded me a lot of a "Fiddler on the Roof" sort of story arc where one group of people are bound in tradition, but a certain percentage of people end up breaking tradition, with the moral being that sometimes it's good to break tradition. That might be a bit of an oversimplification of "Fiddler on the Roof," but the themes of tradition are what are paralleled here. The full premise for "Smallfoot" is that the Yeti live on the top of the Himalayas, but the leader of their city teach them that the top of the mountain is all that exists. Under the clouds, the mountain is held up on the back of some giant yaks. They need to ring the gong every morning to wake up the great snail (aka the sun) and their everyday tasks are very mundane, but need to be done to feed the yaks. Something to that effect, anyways. But one of the big rules is that they are to not ask any questions. In fact, the leader of their city has a coat of stones and each stone has a rule or a principle that is deemed true and never to be questioned. All the Yeti are forced to buy into this or else they are banished. On one of these stones, there is a rule that is written that the smallfoot don't exist. And the whole city is forced to believe that or be banished.

This is where the conflict of the movie comes in. Our main character named Migo, voiced by Channing Tatum, helps his father everyday, who is the one that rings the gong every morning to wake up the great snail. On one occasion, Migo starts to practice hitting the gong, but ends up missing it and flies over to a cliff where a human in an airplane crashes. He is elated that he has seen a smallfoot, but that smallfoot disappears before he is able to show the city of his discovery. When it goes back to the city and is confronted by the Stonekeeper, voiced by Common, he is forced to confess that he only saw a yak. But yet he won't do that because he knows what he saw, but has no proof. So he gets banished from the village and runs into a secret group of Yeti who also believe that the smallfoot exist and convince Migo to go find it to show proof. The confusing thing to Migo is that he has a strong belief in all the stones, yet he knows that he saw a smallfoot, and that directly goes against one of the stones. This secret group of deserters start to plant the idea in his head that if one stone is wrong, perhaps it's possible that all of them are wrong? They're not doing this to purposely rebel, but are rather out to find the truth, which they feel brings power and enlightenment.

Yeah. I thought I was getting myself into a silly little kids film. But what I discovered was a movie that was surprisingly deep and thought-provoking. Truth is knowledge and knowledge is power. And the truth can set you free. Yet, as Uncle Ben in Spider-Man always says, with great knowledge comes great responsibility. And sometimes knowing the truth can be dangerous. Yet do we hide the truth in order to protect people? Is that appropriate? Or do you tell people the truth and let them act accordingly so that they can be prepared for reality? This is the discussion that this movie puts forward and as we dive deeper into the movie, more of this theme is explored. Because the truth of the matter is that the Yeti aren't the only ones in the world. They don't live on a mountain that's on the backs of some giant yak with nothing down below the clouds. The rest of the world exists down there and that world might be dangerous because humans might have misinterpretations about who the Yeti are. Going along right with all those themes is another side theme discussing integrity as our main human character, whose name is Percy and is voiced by James Corden has an inner conflict with himself as doing the right thing isn't getting him the success that he desires.

Believe it or not, I could go deeper into all of these themes that the movie discusses, but I'm not going to because I don't feel like spoiling the movie, which is what I would be required to do in order to fully complete the thoughts in my head about what the movie has to say. And I know it's a silly, little kids film, but I'm still not going to spoil. But I will say that I liked how things resolved as there's a lot of genuinely strong messages that this movie teaches to kids that I think parents would really appreciate, so I give this movie a strong recommendation for parents with young kids. Yes, I know that life is busy and there's also "The Grinch" and "Ralph Breaks the Internet" coming out in November, so maybe you don't have the time and money to see everything. But in that case, I think that once this movie comes out on DVD, it would be a great one to buy to show all of your kids. In addition to the movie teaching great messages, there's also a lot of fun characters that they'll be attached to and a lot of solid humor that will have them laughing. There was a family with lots of young children behind me at me screening and they all had a blast with this. So yeah, I was literally not expecting anything from this, but this was a great surprise for me and thus I will give "Smallfoot" an 8/10.