Tag: 1 out of 4

Before all of the hubbub, I just naturally assumed that The Hunt was a remake of the Danish movie, also called The Hunt. Because it was famous, got nominated for awards, and so of course it will be remade by America at some point.

And that film was about maybe a pedophile, but maybe not, teaching at a school. Apparently this movie is about hunting people as a game, a very unoriginal story!

And apparently, due to its violence, it was taken off the schedule until further notice. And further notice means March 13th, because we haven’t had a big gun disaster in awhile, so it is okay to have a movie with violence.

I mean, minus the fact that people died, it has a pretty good PR campaign to get people talking about the movie. I will assume that was not their goal this whole time.

Ah fuck yeah, two guns!Everyone knows about Manorgate. You know, the conspiracy? The one that says the rich liberal elite once a year steal “deplorables” from the society, to round up and kill them like they are animals. Deplorables can just be anyone they don’t agree with.

You know. Card carrying republicans, gun nuts, conspiracy podcasters, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-abortion people. Any of those types. They just want to round them up in a small group and easily pick them off with traps and weapons, and slowly, this will be the rich’s way of getting rid of the poor and shifting our country blue.

Everyone. Knows. About. This. It has to be true!

That’s why when our cast of characters wake up, gagged, and find guns, they immediately know what is up when they start getting picked off. Can they survive? Can they put an end to this program once and for all?

A big cast of characters, on both sides of this hunt, including in no particular order: Ike Barinholtz, Wayne Duvall, Ethan Suplee, Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Emma Roberts, Christopher Berry, Sturgill Simpson, Kate Nowlin, Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Glenn Howerton, Steve Coulter, Dean J. West, Vince Pisani, Teri Wyble, and Steve Mokate.

Shit, the military is involved as well? Better just add them to the Republicans side! For a film about rounding up people and killing them (allegedly), they really knew how to drag things out and make it really boring. This is the sort of film that promises a lot of deaths, on both sides, and this is wasted on fast group kills that don’t leave a lot left for the viewer.

This works in favor of the film early on, when people are dying when you might not expect it. Big names, with barely any lines, it is hard to know just who the main character is going to be. A lot of traps and explosions and more.

And then when we have only a handful left, it stalls really hard. Later on, a large percentage of the “bad guys” go out right around the same time, once again, why so fast? They needed to much better pace out the killing and keep it diverse.

In the second half of the film, I was left with a lot of slower conversations, like they really needed to pad the running time of this movie to make it last 90 minutes. I shouldn’t be falling asleep as they get to the point.

And yet here I am. The Hunt is all hype and not enough substance. It doesn’t go far enough on the killing, nor really anywhere with its message. This is a film that would only work as a short. Could have told the same sort of story in about 20 minutes and saved all of us time with a much better experience overall.

1 out of 4.

A lot of people love Force Majeure. Haven’t heard about it? Well, in the magical year of 2014, before all of this mess we are in, it was released in France. It won some awards, received a lot of praise, but did it win an Oscar for Best Foreign Film? Nope. Hell it wasn’t even nominated. And unless a foreign film can win both the Oscar for Foreign Film and Best Picture, should we really care about it?

Now most films aren’t Parasite, which means most films are going to get remade at some point.

Downhill is a remake of Force Majeure, with out the subtitles and who knows what else is different. Will it be more of a slapstick? Will there be a ridiculous scream with the avalanche? Will we get to see man butt?

Force Majeure was a really good movie, and I am hoping before seeing it that Downhill is as well.

If anything we can get some sweet mountain shots out of it.

Pete (Will Ferrell) and Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) are a married couple with a couple of kids (Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford) and the romance is on the lower end. Hopefully this very expensive and nice trip to Europe to go skiiing for a week will kick things off with each other. Bring their sexy back. Also, Pete is grieving about his dad dying earlier in the year, so there is that too.

Things start off fine. Their boys complain and argue, but whatever. They got a lot of fun stuff planned. However, when sitting outside to eat lunch at a restaurant, a controlled explosion happens bringing down some snow. An avalanche! And it is a bit scary to watch it coming towards them. Is it dangerous? Or will it be fine?

Well, when others begin freaking out they make their choices. Pete grabs his phone and runs away. Billie is left at the table with her kids and brings them down thinking her husband left them there to die.

And this sort of event unless dealt with right away will probably just build up over time. Like snow on a mountain. And eventually these feelings will avalanche down.

Also starring Kristofer Hivju, Miranda Otto, Zoe Chao, and Zach Woods.

“The cowardice is palatable.” – Billie, probably. Having to compare a movie to what it is based on can be hard. But int his case it is pretty easy.

Force Majeure is a good movie, Downhill is a bad movie, and it is sad to admit that.

In terms of what worked really, really well, we had Louis-Dreyfuss giving a great performance here. Her facial expressions, her outbursts, her confusion about her shitty husband. Her freak out before the helicopter was a good one and warranted.

In this film, they made Pete/Ferrell way more unbearable and the bad guy. I felt like we had some gray area in the first one. He was still clearly wrong, but they balanced it out eventually, sort of, and he wasn’t a complete dick. Pete was someone I wish would have ran from the avalanche and literally just never came back. That would have made this a good remake, deal with that awkwardness.

This remake is shorter, rushes through some of the emotional turmoil, but still includes a bit of the awkward for some discomfort in your seats.

1 out of 4.

What is this year? Two movies about Asian men being super into some older band?

We had Yesterday, about The Beatles, and now we have Blinded By The Light, about The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

Sure, neither of these movies are at all related. One a mystical event wiping them from the world. Another a realistic tale about a dude who just liked Springsteen decades later to an obsessive degree. Yet, at the same time, I feel like they will forever be linked in the future despite everything.

And you know, because of people like me.

People like me, who don´t get to look good in plaid.

Javed (Viveik Kalra) has had a typical Pakistani upbringing. Well, he has been living in London for most of his life, that is different. But his father (Kulvinder Ghir) and mother (Meera Ganatra) are strict, and have his whole life planned out for him. Same for his sister (Kit Reeve).

Despite having a British best friend (Dean-Charles Chapman) across the street, who got to do everything, Javed had to watch and live vicariously a lot of the time. When it got to be time for graduation and college, Javed liked to write poetry, but that wouldn´t lead him to a good career. He couldn´t follow his passions in writing, he had to do something that would make him some money.

Dealing with racism, not fitting in, and a home life that doesn´t care, Javed found a home in one of his fellow South Asian friends, Roops (Aaron Phagura), and his love for a man named Bruce Springsteen. Javed immediately began to connect to his music, about the struggles of life and found a new passion in it all. His music encouraged him to try new things, to date, to follow his passions, and of course, to write.

But following your dreams doesn´t mean you will be on a path of least resistance.

Also featuring Nell Williams, Tara Divina, and Hayley Atwell.

The most appealing part of the room is just how clean it all feels.

I didn´t like Yesterday because the story was a mess and bad all over. I didn´t like Blinded by the Light because I failed to ever care.

This film almost received a 0 from me, but it had some nice scenes at the end. Mainly the protest scene and the arguments with his family scenes. They brought me in a little bit. But everything else felt so forced, and more importantly, slow.

It felt like an eternity to get through this movie, and took awhile to get to a real point. It doesn´t offer anything new on the basic side of things. Kid wants to do something, parents do not want him to do it, and he is able to do it anyways for success! Yay!

Is it better because its a true story? Because its about Springsteen? None of these inherently make a great story. And if it is a true story, it still fails to tell me why it matters. This kid, if he grew up to be a famous song writer or author, we don´t know. At the end we know he grew up to go see Bruce Springsteen in concert a whole lot of times.

Setting the bar quite low for reasons to make a movie here.

1 out of 4.

Ohhh, box office failures? Guess I have to see it.

Much like you all, I never heard about the movie Arctic Dogs coming out to theaters. It wasn’t given to the press. If it had an advertising budget, it went up someone’s ass.

Arctic Dogs went to theaters on November 1st, and completely bombed. It opened in over 2,800 theaters and currently (at time of writing) has the worst amount earned in an opening weekend for that many theaters at just $2.9 million. Completely, and utterly destroyed by its competition.

But surely an animated film about some doggos can’t be that bad?

Oh. Foxes. Maybe. Never mind.

Swifty (Jeremy Renner) is an arctic fox, living in, well, the Arctic. He is super white, blends in with the snow, and thus, others seem to just ignore him and let him do his own thing.

Oh, yeah, this is a animals as humans movie. And the coolest animals in this small town are the Arctic Dogs super hero animals. What do they do? Oh. They deliver mail and packages to other small towns. Cool.

So naturally Swifty wants to be an Arctic Dog sledder, despite being a fox. And he meets the weight requirements, but isn’t really strong. So he is sent into the warehouse to help stamp packages, looking on the outside in.

Well, one time, Swifty has to send out a package. And it is to a weird Walrus recluse (John Cleese) who has Puffins working for him, all weird. And apparently that is enough for the Walrus to get rid of all the Arctic Dogs, just in case.

Now it is up to Swifty to deliver the packages, and, maybe, one day, also save the day.

Also starring Alec Baldwin, Anjelica Huston, Heidi Klum, James Franco, Laurie Holden, and Omar Sy.

Yep, Walrus on a robot spider bod. The ladies love it.

You see, Arctic Dogs isn’t bad enough to warrant its record. I mean, it is bad sure. But it is straight to DVD bad, not let’s scorn this movie so it never tries this nonsense again, bad.

Voice casting, most of it is uninspired. Not even John Cleese could save it with his wonderful words and accent. Hero is generic. We have had plenty of times someone who wants to be something, that he literally shouldn’t be able to do, but does it anyways because perseverance. But they keep doing it with animals or inanimate objects so that the real message is lost.

At least this time in this movie he didn’t just train hard enough to eventually get the job and prove people wrong. No, he got the job because all of the others were captured. Why? Because of plot reasons that don’t make at all any sense. Why would the villain want to take out all of the mail delivery dogs, when he still needs to get mail delivered to finish his evil plot? … … … Ohhh, because of poor writing.

Our female lead has the personality of Engineer, which is at least slightly different than the personality of scientist. And she unknowingly helps the bad guy the whole time, because I guess she isn’t smart enough to know what she is building? And there could be plot resolved from this earlier, if the main characters could talk better.

Oh, and let’s not forget the bad guys motivations. He is used to represent Global Warming, because its great to have a single source for the blame and make things fixable.

I just…I don’t know why the plot is so, so, so, so bad. The animation is definitely okay/average. But the terrible plot, nonsensical decisions and overdone tenants of the story line make this a disaster from the start. Good thing no one watched it.

0 out of 4.

When I first saw the trailer for Yesterday, I will admit it intrigued me. A world where only one person knew about The Beatles? Okay, cool.

A world where something never happened can be a hard subject to take over. Are the writers/director going to really drive hard into all the consequences of the bigger band ever never existing? Will a lot of the world be different? Or will it just be an awkward hole that needs filling.

And honestly, I don´t care about The Beatles at all. So hearing some guy do covers of their music all movie doesn´t appeal to me in the slightest, so I would go in only caring about the story, the why, and the ramifications.

He also seems to be screaming instead of singing most of these shots. Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is a British man from an Indian family, trying to make it big in the music business. He can write songs and play guitar, but no one gives a damn about him. His best friend for a long time is his manager and a school teacher, and Ellie (Lily James) has always supported him, even when he wants to give up.

And he wants to give up, a lot. Especially after he is hit by a bus when a global blackout occurs.

After his recovery, he plays a Beatles song for his friends, and none of them recognize it. That is a dumb joke, but whatever. And when he references them to more and more people, no one has a clue what he is talking about. Shit, even the internet is confused by his nonsense.

Time to exploit this knowledge, sing all of their songs, and become world famous! But wait, it is 2019. Will people care about the Beatles songs outside of the context of their role in history? Aren´t they all basic forms of music compared to some of the complex music we have today?

Eh, who cares. Let´s get rich and deal with the how and moral implications later.

Also starring Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran, and Joel Fry.

Scream number 2.

If you want a light movie with some Beatles covers and some light romance too, then I got a movie with you. If you care at all about plot or the ramifications, well, do not watch this movie.

This is the type of film where they had the idea and stopped developing it after the idea. There were a few cute moments about OTHER popular things that did not exist because of the Beatles fame. But the only one that made direct sense was Oasis, because of course. The filmmakers just nonchalantly picked other famous things to delete as well.

Were they because of the no Beatles? Were they also wiped during this weird event? Were they the real thing that was disappeared and that caused no Beatles? They do not explain it at all, and do not make an attempt.

And also, as most of us would assume, no one would get super famous from Beatles music in 2019, if it didn´t come out 60-70 years ago. No way at all. So his strange rise to success feels forced and at no point am I given a believable picture of this strange rise to fame.

Just kidding. A scene where his parents gave no fuck that he was unveiling a new song for them to hear, and interrupted him multiple times? That was believable.

A concept that could have been great, but was instead left up to mysteries and lack of thought.

1 out of 4.

Ah yes, the last major animated film to be released in America in 2019.

Ah no, I am not including Playmobil: The Movie, because I said major release, major damn it. I am talking about things that probably felt they were good enough to come out and get awards or nominations or sweet Holiday money.

And it looks like Spies in Disguise is trying to get that sweet, sweet, Holiday money. Hard to make any money these days against a Star Wars release, but there is some to go around and not a lot of kid friendly movies coming out this Christmas day.

And hey, this one has Will Smith, and some people still think he is the best thing since 1999.

But have you seen him as a bird???????????????It turns out our main character isn’t going to be the cool spy, but the weirdo inventor! We know that Walter Beckett (Tom Holland) is the main character, because he gets a backstory at the beginning of the film, with his mom clearly going to die soon, who encourages him to keep up his science stuff and save the world with hugs.

Years later, Walter is working for the spy agency, but his gadgets are rarely picked. One of his is finally used when Lance Sterling (Will Smith), famous amazing spy that everyone loves, emits his gadget because Walter switched out Lance’s bag. Whoops.

This gets Walter fired, but because Lance is getting framed at the same exact time, Lance finds himself at Walter’s house needing help to disappear. And sure enough, Walter can do that. He doesn’t really warn him, but really he just wants to turn him into a pigeon for some sick fetish game.

Hah! Pigeons.

Anyways, now they have to save the world, when their very capable spy is a pigeon. Role credits!

Starring Karen Gillan, Rashida Jones, Reba McEntire, Ben Mendelsohn, Masi Oka, and DJ Khaled.

Pigeon penis. Walter wants to change the world, but no one wants to listen to him. He has to put a spy’s life in danger in order to get it done and is shocked to be fired.

Better question, why does he even have a job at this place if they don’t want to use his stuff? Like, who are the hire ups to kept him working, with zero guidance or feedback? If he didn’t produce, you’d think they’d tell him to stop it and design specific stuff or get walking. But nothing? And why does a spy in the agency have the ability to even fire him at all? They clearly have oversight, and I don’t think agent would be a boss level about the scientists to fire them. That is just silly.

Oh, that’s all stuff I shouldn’t care about? Okay.

They made Will Smith into a pigeon and then didn’t do enough fun stuff with the pigeon. His character is way too antagonistic after the point when he should have stopped being so mad and learned to try to make the best of his body. The science is too dumb that is being showcased to make him a pigeon, along with the other gadgets used. And the pigeon transformation seems to work differently at the beginning and end of the movie. Because.

This could have been an okay movie.

But you know what? They even had a character named Ears act so stupid, just because DJ Khaled was his voice, and it never seemed to match the actual character. Did they let Khaled just improvise? Stop that, his ego doesn’t need that.

1 out of 4.

It’s the circle of life, and fifteen years after The Lion King graced our screens, we are now given a new The Lion King. But there is so much different between the two! You see, the one twenty-five years ago was animated, while this one is…animated differently!

Only one scene had some live action components, and that was in the opening montage of animals, some of the backgrounds were real. That is it. Everything else you couldn’t even call a green screen, because it is 100% made on computers.

We just really want you to make sure you don’t call this the Live Action version, like a lot of their recent remakes. It is not, it is still animated, and nothing is real anymore anyways.

Hakuna my tatas, life is a lie.

Ah good. Simba (Donald Glover) exists. Maybe this time his Uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wont trick him into thinking that he killed his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones). Oh… Think again!

No, but this time it is different. We have more animals! Like, we got this spiritual one, Rafiki (John Kani) who likes to wait around and draw on his walls. We got Nala (Beyoncé) who likes to wrestle, we got super mad Zazu (John Oliver) just trying to give advice, we got Sarabi (Alfre Woodard), mad that her husband had to go and get dead. Okay a lot of that is the same.

Uhhhh, we got Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), and they like to relax, but this time more animals in the oasis have words too!

Oh, oh, oh, the real difference. None of our hyenas are unable to speak! Yeah that’s it. Nailed it.

Also featuring the voices of Chance the Rapper, Eric André, Florence Kasumba, JD McCray, Keegan-Michael Key, Penny Johnson Jerald, and Shahadi Wright Joseph.

“Shit, I was brought into this world just for this?” – Simba, probably.

Let’s take something people like, bring it back again, and make it worse, while also technically improving it. Because sure, the animals looked very realistic, which is what they were going for. Technology sure is wonderful.

And the realistic animals is also the cause of all of the other problems in this movie.

Because they are so realistic, having them talk looks awkward. And more awkward than talking animal films like Homeward Bound, because in Homeward Bound, they didn’t try to match words to their mouth movement, they just put voice overs. Watching the animals talk is distracting and downright wrong. The animals don’t have emotions on their faces either, so when the voice actors ATTEMPT to give emotion, then it is seemingly lost and wasted.

I do say attempt, because honestly, most of the voice acting was phoned in. People coming from the movie usually talk about Eichner and Rogen being the stars, because at least they are funny. Everyone else is super serious all the time. Sure, there are dark moments, but many characters provide laughs in the original.

However, even Rogen falls short for me, because his singing is terrible. I can’t enjoy Hakuna Matata when Rogen is bringing it down. Poor Eichner, actually singing well. Speaking of songs, whatever they did to Be Prepared will forever be seen as one of the biggest mistakes int his films history.

Now, what I am most disappointed about is this movie added almost 30 minutes of material, so I figured we’d get expanded characters. All we really got expanded was Sarabi, and that is barely. We still have a whole trove of lionesses that are just background, and still only three hyenas. No new animals to speak of and introduce as characters.

The only little bit of reprieve we get is in the oasis, where finally some random animals are also talking and adding in words, especially during the grub scene. How do we not have more of that?! It is so easy to do, and plus, more goddamn toys to sell.

Instead we got a movie with worse music, worse voice acting, technically better animation, but a lot less heart.

1 out of 4.

After the (lame) success of Bohemian Rhapsody, and then Rocketman, I figured that we might get a George Michael movie also at some point. I mean, he is also British and famous from the 80’s and 90’s.

I just didn’t think it would be like…this.

Last Christmas is a RomCom that is inspired by a George Michael song and also other George Michael things? So it is not a story about George Michael. But I do find it sad that a gay man’s song has been turned into a heterosexual romance movie. But that is what happens when you die. People do whatever they want with your legacy.

Ew, kissing. Life is not going well for Kate (Emilia Clarke). She is technically homeless, in that she crashes on the couches of her friends until they get sick of her. Which is often, as she is klutzy, she likes getting drunk, and she brings strange men to their apartments without permission.

She could live with her mother (Emma Thompson) and father (Boris Isakovic), but since they moved to London from Yugoslavia during the war, they have been too extra. Distant and worrisome. Overbearing. And her sister (Lydia Leonard) hates her as well.

So Kate lives her life couch to couch, working full time at a Christmas store for Santa (Michelle Yeoh), and badly auditioning for musicals with her heart not being fully into it. She loves singing, she wants it as a career, but she can’t get her life together.

And then she meets a man, a Tom man (Henry Golding) who is incredibly weird. He wants her to see the world around her and take things…slow? What the hell is this?

Santa’s made up, so Santa can be an Asian old lady too.

Last Christmas has some positives! Like Thompson, who is incredibly delightful as an older Eastern European worrisome mother. She is fantastic and completely wasted in this role for the movie. She is one of the main saviors from making this a 0.

I also enjoyed Golding, another one of the leads. I have seen him in a few roles, but in this one he really struck for me. He was a really good ideal dream hunk.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie exists, and what we got on the screen is not worth watching unless you are on the Hallmark channel working on a Christmas movie marathon. We all know that is where this one is destined to be.

Clarke is playing the lead in an anime with her level of klutz, and her transformation doesn’t stick in my eyes. As I thought the movie was building up to be something more endearing, the ending happened and it totally ruined my evening. I won’t go into more details there, but it literally went too dumb.

Also, it clearly didn’t go enough into George Michael. Kate is obsessed with him, and sings like, one of his songs? They went out of their way to say this took place in London, 2017, so we had a setting. You’d think they’d also go out of their way to talk about his death in that same location the year prior. Just seems weird.

1 out of 4.

Harriet coming out in 2019 is one of those surprising things that you didn’t expect. How could one of the most famous black women ever not already have a real, state of the art, biography film? The woman who saved so many slaves in the underground railroad? The woman who won an informal contest about replacing Andrew Jackson from a $20 bill.

The most surprising thing about that internet contest is that it sort of worked! The secretary of treasury at the time said sure and was going to do some things. And then Trump happened, and well, there are “more important things to worry about” according to the new secretary of treasury, and she got the shaft again.

This movie might have been made just to help expedite the whole process. I’ve heard about movies being made for worse reasons!

Like, “My best friend was mysterious and hid behind trees, here is there movie!”

Araminta “Minty” Ross (Cynthia Erivo) was born a slave, to slave parents, and only knew working for the man. Her sisters were sold off at a young age, and she was left lonely with out him. She was a similar age to the slaveholders son, Gideon (Joe Alwyn), and knew him her whole life.

After a plea for freedom, based on the wishes of the former owner, Minty knew that she just had to get out of there. So she ran. And with help from people along the way, but on a journey by herself, she made it to Philadelphia, land of the free. There she met slavery abolitionist William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), who gave her new papers and let her pick her new identity, Harriet Tubman. And for a year she lived a free woman, learning how to be free and live well for once.

But it wasn’t enough. She had family down south. She had a husband. And if the movement up here wouldn’t go and save them, she would just go and do it herself. Again. And again. And again. And again.

And shit, one day, maybe lead a goddamn army regiment during the civil war.

Also starring Jennifer Nettles, Janelle Monáe, Tim Guinee, and Vondie Curtis-Hall.

And introducing for the first time, this GUN.

Sigh. Okay. This is a standard biopic, somewhat boring at times, with good acting from the lead. That is what I am now going to say in more words right after this sentence.

Erivo has been a great acting addition since she hit the scene seemingly last year, and ended up great in our titular role. She would be the reason to see this movie in theaters, as she carries the film.

The cast of supporting characters doesn’t work as well. Seeing Odom Jr., was great, as someone historical other than Aaron Burr, but he felt too goofy in his role and it took away from some of the seriousness of his scenes. Monáe stood out way too much also to feel believable in the role.

The slaveholders are once again turned into cartoon characters instead of villains that both intimidate and induce real scorn. Alwyn never feels natural in his role, and the final confrontation between his character and Tubman is just so fake feeling that the story seems to be wasted on that.

When doing a biography film, it is important to steep it in as much truth as possible if they want to make it something schools will buy and show for education reasons.

Other important notes: I am glad they included her civil war victory. I am glad they showed the various members of the railroad who helped her along the way. And this movie has Fredrick Douglas in it, but they never say his name. It’s great he has such an iconic look that we can tell without doing the awkward name dropping thing lampooned in Walk Hard.

Harriet features great acting from the lead, but the rest could have had improvements to make this a truly great film.

1 out of 4.

I was not looking forward to Abominable. We all know about Doppelganger films, and it can feel very awkward, but usually the films involved at least come out a few months apart.

Instead this time we got three, and it took almost a whole year. I mean that literally. Smallfoot came out Sept 28, 2018. We had Missing Link come out April 9, 2019, about a very similar topic, but different, sure. And now we have Abominable, coming out Sept 27, 2019. That is literally a year later on the same Friday as Smallfoot!

How many large humanoid animated films do we actually want? Because I assure you, when Smallfoot came out I did not care to see it at all, but despite that ended up liking it. When Missing Link was announced, it felt like such a lame film compared to their last one, Kubo and the Two Strings.

Given this, to me, Abominable just feels dead on arrival, and I can’t even tell you if they tried to advertise this one.

Hopefully they aren’t dead on arrival on this train. That’d be graphic.

Yi (voiced by the very white Chloe Bennet), lives in what I assume is Hong Kong and has her own tragic story. Her father passed away at some point recently, living her to just live with her mom (Michelle Wong) and Nai Nai (Tsai Chin). She has decided to keep busy this summer, working odd jobs all day for money to save up. She has plans to travel around China, to the sites her dad promised to take her.

And nearby, in some crazy secure facility, a yeti escapes! It was owned by Burnish (Eddie Izzard), a rich man who wants to prove to the world that yetis exist, and has spent his life trying to catch one to prove. He has a head zoologist, Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson), who wants to just protect these endangered animals.

Either way! Yeti escapes, finds itself on Yi’s roof, and they bond! Yi is determined to help get him out of the city from the scary helicopters. And maybe she will just join him along the way.

Also starring the voices of Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, and Joseph Izzo.

How many kids could that thing fit in its mouth?

Abominable is not giving us a story we haven’t already seen before. And no, I am not talking about yetis this time.

Youth finds magical creature and has to hide it from those looking to kill it/capture it. Somehow with gumption, luck, and magic, they are able to save the creature and get it home. Ho hum. A lack of originality is not the problem with this movie. Its the lazy writing.

In this movie, the yeti has nature magic. What does that mean? Well, it starts with just can grow things fast. And then becomes whatever the hell they want it to be. It gets “stronger” the closer he is to home, and basically, if they are ever in danger, he can use the magic and the creators write some way to advance the plot. Over and over and over. That’s really shit.

And you know what? I won’t even get into the Chinese propaganda in this movie. There are enough articles online and I am not an expert enough to bring it up and explain it, so it has no effect on the review, but it sounds really shitty.

Definitely a skippable movie.

1 out of 4.