This was going to be "Life Itself", but my god, what a viscerally unpleasant movie. I got about 20 minutes into it and said "Nope, it's not gonna be me,".2018's Non-Entity in the Animation game (Oh wait, there was also "Summer Vacation"), "Smallfoot" is probably the most clearly childish, strictly for the little, little kids animated movie of the year.
Despite hearing Zendaya's song for this ages ago (it would be a real contender in a less forgettable movie), the singing caught me a bit off guard. The lyrics to the first song are especially pedestrian. "Rio 2", this ain't.
Also this movie is the main characters learning to not just listen to what religious-minded elders say and question the world they live in and be thoughtful citizens of the world.
By far, it's the most creative, interesting, and non-trite part of this movie.
Everything else is paint by numbers from the cinematography to the character tropes. This could have been an incredibly smart contender if they didn't wrap a good idea in a standard package.
There's also a heavy undercurrent of new ideas changing old roles in society, leaving individuals with questions about who they are and where they fit.
Call it the coal miner - solar energy parable.
If the Oscars had to pick one movie from each studio, I'd prefer "Teen Titans Go! To the Movies" over this one.
Let's give it up for the sound mixing, because it is absolutely phenomenal here. The snow, the rocks, the impacts...when the movie stops with the kid-friendly physical humor, you can glean a lot of atmosphere from the sound direction and mixing.
Besides an incredibly bad song set to the vague tune of "Under Pressure", the music is actually pretty catchy if you put it on 1.3x speed, especially the "villain" song.
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