Abominable is a 2019 Dreamworks film that was a decent box office film, good with critics, and it is mostly forgotten. Part of this is there were two other yeti movies released at the same time, part of it is how loaded 2019 was with box office megahits, and part of it is its weirdly inconsistent quality. It goes back and forth on doing something great and doing something bad.
To start things off there is a mixed scene. The introduction to Everest, the yeti is good. He breaks out before he can be shown to the world. He is kept completely in the shadows, and he looks at a poster to his home mountain. On the other hand there is the introduction to our villain, Dr. Zara.
I think She and Prince Hans are a perfect twist villain together, as they reverse all their strengths and weaknesses. While he is a great villain build up she is a boring villain build up. While he then becomes a sucky villain with too little thirst for blood she is great after the reveal and has lots of thirst for blood. Here is her initial look.
It is a boring look for such a key antagonist. She pretends to be an animal lover, so she carries around a gerbil that she secretly hates. She always looks very stoic.
Here is after her reveal.
Much more emotion, much wilder, and the animal is gone. She looks kind of like Merida, except Zara looks like she fits into her own movie. She has more in common story wise with Scarlet from Total Drama.
Next scene introduces the main three leads, Yi, her cousin Peng, and their cousin Jin. Yi’s father recently died putting the family in a rough patch, and they are trying to move on in different ways. Peng is into sports and tries to move on with his life. Only the younger kids play with him, so he hopes either of his bigger cousins will play with him. Jinn in into social media and popularity to get over it. Yi is the lead, and she does it by hustling for money to take a trip she was going to take with her dad (later revealed she has never left the city). She is introduces as very aloof trying to stay distant from her remaining family. I like this scene. The dialogue leaves a little to be desired early on, but the story gets the job done. My main problem is Chloe Bennet’s performance as the lead. She is not bad, as she gets the range right, but she does not sound like a young teenager, as she sounds like a 30 year old woman. I let that pass years ago, but now that I am on a PBS Kids binge for an upcoming list I am not so forgiving. Their shows are full of children voiced by children or adults convincingly sounding like children. It does not help Peng and Jin were actually voiced by teenagers.
A good detail is most of Yi’s jobs are literally working in trash. She lies she sold the violin to her mother’s disappointment, and later scenes show how big a deal that is. Her father taught her to play it, and ignoring it is her ignoring what he wanted her to focus on, family.
12 minutes in until Everest’s face is revealed. Yi shelters and cares for him over several days. It is revealed through music he has powers like making plants grow fast and healthy. By many reports yetis are big singers, and some malicious stories say they have sound based attacks, so I am fine with this very divisive element. I also see the other side who think magic yeti should be able to just teleport himself to Everest.
Burnish, the red herring villain, is introduced. He is played by Eddie Izzard giving it lots of energy. His design is much funner than the other ones. He is a man who seemingly hates nature, but loves it in his own way. He will become the nature lover Zara pretends to be. In the past he was attacked by a yeti, and nobody believed him. I see why he wants to prove they exist, and he makes me laugh, so I like this guy.
Everest is found resulting in a decent and mixed chase scene. One one hand it is animated well, has some good visuals, and Jin (reluctantly) and Peng (happily joining are highlights). On the other hand it seems forced Zara can keep up, and at this point she is a boring villain.
Peng’s arc is the most simple. He basically wants a big brother and Everest gives him that right up to letting Peng play in his mouth.
Next comes a series of short scenes. A major highlight of the movie is the blueberry scene where Everest makes them grow enourmous, and they have to flee them. The problem is Jin goes “Flat Earth Atheist.” There is some good dialogue with Jinn and Yi about Hustle vs hedonism. Burnish is the one enjoying nature, but he wants to cut his favorite tree down to put it in the penthouse. This contrasts with Zara being hyper focused on yeti. He is becoming a real nature lover piece by piece.
In a chase scene Jin gets scared and captured and Zara is finally shown to be a good villain. She manipulates Jin by explaining Everest is an unpredictable wild animal. Zara is revealed to be villain at 53 minute mark, and she plans on killing kids and gets rid of gerbil. Jin overhears and gives Burnish the gerbil and leaves in the funniest part of the movie.
He comedically keeps getting lost, filthy, and all his master plans like stealing a motorcycle go wrong. I relate way too well to Jin this scene. At the end he finds a boat and trades it for his phone showing how he has changed. Going into this movie and rewatch I thought he would be my least favorite character, but I love this guy. Some viewers have asked how the battery is not dead. I think it is in character for him to carry around a portable charger. The comedy mixed with character development and a new design really helps. His inconsistent and inconclusive actions (jumping on the boat, but not the previous escape dandelion) help him feel the most like a real kid.
Throughout the movie he has called his expensive shoes “his babies” and been way too worried when they got dirty. After this image where he holds them above the rain he ditches that and uses them as normal shoes.
Thanks to Jin’s words Zara interecepts Everest, Peng, and Yi. Jin and his new boat and hero design come to the rescue, and Everest uses his yeti powers to lose Zara. It is a fun scene that then hits mood whiplash when the violin is broken.
Broken violin is a key highlight. There is no big third act break up nor big action, just talking about dealing with the death of Yi’s dad. It does make them seem very grown up like this adventure has changed them all for the better.
Almost 70 minutes in and Yi can now make plants grow too. I presume this is due to Everest remaking her violin with his fur, and it is a sweet scene. Villains corner them on a bridge, and Everest goes to defend them. Burnish then remembers the yeti he faced was defending its three children, not attacking him, and he switches goals. Zara has her security captain tranquilize him, captures, Everest, and throws Yi off a bridge. I was forgetting why I praised her as a good twist villain, but this is quite the scene for her. She is incredibly malicious.
Yi survives by clinging to a broken cable. In the climax she wakes up Everest with her violin’s new Yeti powers, and he stops the convoy. Zara is fed up and tries to kill him resulting in her own death. After all the good to great scenes before it this is a lackluster climax.
It has the expected falling action. Burnish is now a huge hero. They get Everest back to his home and family, and the children’s family is very happy with how the children have changed. It is simple, but I think it is a good ending.
It is slow paced, thus the pacing is highly subjective- too slow or great for development, and I am mixed. It is a mixed movie, and I give it a high Three Tree Star rating. I am glad I saw and rewatched it.
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