‘SMALLFOOT’
PG 1:36
A clever premise, bold message and larger-thanlife charm help the animated adventure “Smallfoot” rise above the film’s ill-conceived venture into movie musical territory.
The Warner Animation Group movie cunningly turns the lasting legend of Bigfoot on its shaggy head. Directed and co-written by Karey Kirkpatrick (“Over the Hedge”), “Smallfoot” transports audiences high into the Himalayas, where a village of yetis dwells in cheerful isolation. Perky teenager Migo (voice of Channing Tatum) is especially happy with his place in this provincial ice land: He is apprenticing with his father, Dorgle (Danny DeVito), who holds the singular position as gong-ringer.
The gong-ringer’s job is to catapult himself headfirst into the gong daily to wake the giant glowing orange snail that travels through the sky to give light and heat to the world.
You might know it as the sun.
Yeti culture is built on an elaborate set of myths and rules that are literally carved on small stones that form the robe worn by the village leader, the Stonekeeper (Common, who brings nuance to a role that thankfully proves to have unsuspected depth). No one is allowed to question the stones or the Stonekeeper, under threat of banishment.
Migo learns that the hard way when he misjudges a practice run at the gong and hurtles down a mountainside and into the path of a crashing plane. He soon finds himself face to face with a legendary Smallfoot (also known as a human), whose parachute swoops him away. The problem is that, according to the stones, there’s no such thing as a Smallfoot, and when Migo refuses to recant, he is exiled.
The disillusioned protagonist doesn’t stay alone for long, as the members of the secret Smallfoot Evidentiary Society, or SES, seek him out. The group is made up of the town misfits — Gwangi (LeBron James), Kolka (Gina Rodriguez) and Fleem (Ely Henry) — but its leader is none other than the Stonekeeper’s smart and inquisitive daughter, Meechee (Zendaya).
With the help of the SES, Migo plots to venture below the clouds into what the Stonekeeper claims is nothingness and find proof that the Smallfoot is real.
Meanwhile, in a Nepalese town below the clouds, television nature show host Percy Patterson (James Corden) is feeling the pressure of plummeting ratings and viral video competition. To the disgust of his levelheaded producer Brenda (Yara Shahidi), he plots to fake a Bigfoot encounter to regain his fame and fortune — until he encounters the real thing in the towering Migo.
In a nod to the Warner Bros. cartoon canon, “Smallfoot” also boasts plenty of hilarious Looney Tunesesque sight gags, adding welcome zaniness to the film’s often-monochromatic visual palette.
But no amount of wackiness can make the animated musical’s original songs memorable; most of them are such generic children’s movie fodder that they are swept from memory faster than footprints in a blizzard.
The action and humor are appropriate for even tiny tots, but “Smallfoot” is pretty high-concept for an animated feature, even for a time when Pixar, DreamWorks and, to a lesser extent, Warner Animation Group, often produce thought-provoking material.
Although some may find the film’s messages subversive, I actually found the themes about respectfully questioning rules and beliefs, staying curious and seeking knowledge to be a refreshingly rousing change of pace from the usual children’s movie platitudes. It might be a “Smallfoot,” but a movie that values critical thinking is a big step in the right direction.
Starring: Voices of Channing Tatum, Common, Danny DeVito, LeBron James, James Corden, Zendaya and Gina Rodriguez (some action, rude humor, and thematic elements)
— Brandy McDonnell,
The Oklahoman enough together — to keep “Night School” from flunking out; this is a decent enough placeholder in between (hopefully) bolder efforts from each.
But it doesn’t help that Lee, who made Haddish a revelation in last year’s “Girl’s Trip,” casts her as effectively the straight man. Haddish, Hart and a classroom should be all that’s really needed for a laugh-filled comedy. But a thin script (by Hart and five other writers) doesn’t give either enough material, nor does keeping Haddish slightly under wraps as a taskmaster teacher in an adult education class.
Hart stars as Teddy Walker, a successful Atlanta patio furniture salesman who skipped out on the SATs and never graduated high school. When his lavish proposal to his girlfriend, Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke), goes explosively awry in the store he works, Walker’s tenuous lifestyle comes apart at the seams.
Teddy’s only hope for employment is with the financial company of his friend (Ben Schwartz), but for that he needs his G.E.D. For night classes, Teddy returns to the high school of his youth, which is now run by his teenage rival (Taran Killam, as a racist and pitiful principal). His teacher, Carrie (Haddish), has no patience for Teddy’s usual circumventions and eventually — sit down for the shock — gets him to study.
“Night School” is at its best in its classroom setting thanks to a freewheeling ensemble adeptly juggled by Lee. Too much of “Night School” is coated in redemption schmaltz (Hart’s story line) or is missing Haddish (Hart’s storyline). But the night school scenes, while still a little tame (the film is rated PG-13 when the freedom of an R rating seems required), pingpong animatedly between a misfit group of G.E.D.-seekers.
The teaming up of Haddish and Hart goes down as a missed opportunity. Though she makes Carrie easily the film’s most human character, Haddish isn’t given enough room to let loose; “Night School” is really Hart’s film. And, like countless studio comedies of the past few years, “Night School” is a straightforward concept that relies too much on the charisma of its performers to carry a weak script. It didn’t do its homework.
Starring: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Ben Schwartz, Taran Killam, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Al Madrigal, Romany Malco, Mary Lynn Rajskub (crude and sexual content throughout, some drug references and violence.) — Jake Coyle, Associated Press ultimately make. Burdened with a score of ominous, discordant string music, foreboding thunderclaps and occasionally histrionic dialogue, “Lizzie” limps along, a curious Gothic mystery yoked to a heavy 21st-century #MeToo agenda that feels ill-suited to its slight framework.
In the title role, Sevigny is something of a closed book, delivering a stolid performance that can be read as either strong-willed or stonyhearted. For her part, Stewart reverts to what has all too often been the actress’ default mode: a look of perpetual distress that resembles the face one makes after swallowing something unpleasant.
The film opens on the day of the grisly double murder (still unsolved to this day, but for which Lizzie was the only person charged). It then quickly backtracks to six months earlier, working its way through furtive couplings, while speculating about all the possible perpetrators, including Lizzie’s uncle, played by a scenerychewing, vaguely creepy Denis O’Hare.
The Borden household, as presented here, is a veritable rat’s nest of deception, spite and simmering resentment, with Fiona Shaw, as Lizzie’s dour stepmother, turning in a nicely muted portrait of misery. Her longsuffering silence is in stark contrast to the behavior of her husband.
Eventually, the narrative of “Lizzie” catches up to the day of the crime again, before jumping ahead to the trial. The evidence includes some strange testimony, such as this head-scratcher from a Harvard scientist, who asserts that “all the blood and hair samples” taken from the murder weapon were “found to be animal in origin — specifically bird.” (Huh? Since when do birds have hair?)
The story then flashes back, once again, to the actual murders, finally playing them out in all their lurid glory, compete with nudity, spurting blood and squishy sound effects that evoke a slasher flick. There’s a perverse pleasure to be taken in the bloodbath, but Macneill and Kass weaken their message of female empowerment by pushing it past politics to pulp fiction.
Starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Jamey Sheridan, Fiona Shaw, Denis O’Hare (Contains violence and grisly images, nudity, a scene of sexuality and some crude language.) 106 minutes. — Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post