Without a doubt, animation is my favorite storytelling medium. Personally, its all about the individuality of expression. Animation gives way for so many different types of stories to be told through the beauty and unique characteristics of each individual storyteller's style. From the design of the characters, to the smoothness of the animation, and even to the expression of movement, animation is a completely unique experience that allows one to tell any kind of story that they can possibly imagine. Due to this freedom and this glorious level of creativity, I am always drawn to animated films that hit the big screen.
Given my love for the medium, I went into "Abominable" with already high hopes. Even if I didn't like the movie, I could at least admire the animated medium on a larger than life screen. However, to my great pleasure, I found myself admiring more than just the medium of animation. In fact, this film produced by DreamWorks Animation and Pearl Studio provided audience members with a fun story with absolutely stunning characteristics.
As a starting point, I absolutely love the fact that this movie takes place in China. Not only does this lead to some beautiful visuals and interesting settings, it is absolutely lovely to see a movie that centers on protagonists that are persons of color. With so much media collected through the years saturated with alarming levels of uniformity in terms of culture and race, it is so refreshing and wonderful to see such lovely diversity present in this film. Not only does this provide the chance of positive identity formation, it gives us a greater insight into a culture that some audience members might not be as familiar with. Overall, I am very grateful for this movie and its design and setting decisions.
Secondly, I have to applaud the movie on its character design. The Yeti himself is absolutely adorable and his design departs enough from standard depictions of Yetis to give him a sense of uniqueness and identity. Similarly, I found myself admiring the way the other characters were designed as well. All the color choices and shapes were very pleasing to the eye and fit the characters in terms of personality. This movie was definitely not lacking in the character creation process.
I could not go through this talk about the film without talking about the levels of creativity when it comes to the visuals. This movie likes to play with the concept of magic and definitely provides us with some beautiful works of art. The way that magic and visuals meld together in this movie provide us with a simply fantastic and beautiful film to watch. In fact, I would still be pleased with the movie even if it was lacking any dialogue. I adore the beautiful effects from the wave-like hills, to the fish-like clouds, to the giant dandelions, and especially to the way magic bends and shapes flowers. I just couldn't get enough of how beautiful this film was in the creative visual department and I would highly recommend this movie for that alone.
Wonderful visuals are absolutely to be admired, but they are all the more impressive when lovely animation is given to back it up. This movie definitely has a lot of heart and soul poured into its animation and animation effects. The lighting and the character movement provide audience members with a banquet of visual delight. I have seen many animated films over the years, and this one is definitely a winner in terms of its beautiful art style and lovely, fluid animation.
It would be a sin to go through this movie without talking about the lovely soundtrack. Founded in the characters themselves, this film takes total advantage of its violin playing skills. The soundtrack is absolutely enchanting with its heartfelt musical moments. The songs were peaceful and quite lovely to listen to as the movie played. I could listen to the main character's violin solo for hours. If anything, I would definitely recommend listening to the score of this film.
The only real point of complication when it comes to this movie is its story. While I can say for certainty that the story is completely functional and provides a fun spin on the mythical Yeti creature, I found myself able to fill in a bunch of gaps in the movie before they occurred. This film had a vision, especially as a children's adventure movie, and one can quickly catch on and see where that vision was going. However, despite levels of predictability, the story does provide some lovely and heartfelt moments that align with the themes of love, friendship, and family. Personally, these moments in the story were strong and were satisfying to see unfold onscreen. Though the story isn't the strongest part of this film, its warm and fuzzy moments definitely make up for it in the end.
Overall, I would definitely give this movie a try. If you are a fan of animation and music, I can guarantee you won't find this film too abominable.
