Video review: "Smallfoot"

“Smallfoot” is a better idea than movie. The twist is that in this story, bigfoots really exist, except to them we’re the mythological and frightening creatures. It’s a cool concept that gets watered down into a standard kiddie film with boingy action and a slathered-on life-lessons theme.

Channing Tatum voices Migo, a young yeti who is about to take over the prestigious job of gong-ringer. This means making the sun rise by catapulting himself across their Himalayan mountain village and slamming his head into a massive gong. His dad (Danny DeVito) has held the position for many years, and has literally shrunk in the job.

A lot of the things the yetis do are like that -- they’re fun but don’t make much sense. Still, it’s a bustling place with a lot of joy.

They have some strange laws, though, enforced by the stoic Stonekeeper (Common), who wears a robe consisting of stone tiles, each one inscribed with a law known to be true. One of them reads, “There is no such thing as a smallfoot.” Odd that they would have a word and a rule for something that supposedly doesn’t exist.

Soon enough Migo stumbles across a real smallfoot, aka human, in the form of Percy Patterson (James Corden), a down-market wildlife television personality who has come to the Himalayas in order to fake a bigfoot sighting and pump up his ratings. Then he runs into the real thing, they become fast friends and Migo takes him back to his mountaintop village.

This puts him in conflict with the Stonekeeper and the yetis’ entire belief system. But with a few musical numbers and antics, everything will turn out all right.

“Smallfoot” is animation for the whole family, or at least the sort under age 10. It’s a perfect movie for home video, since parents can hit the ‘play’ button and then find something better to do.

Video extras are decent, and include a new animated short, “Super Soozie,” about a yeti toddler. There’s also a sing-along mode, three music videos and a couple of making-of featurettes.

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Review: "Smallfoot"

Everybody’s a monster to somebody.

In this age of peak tribalism, people tend to cluster in like groups and don’t question the precepts of what they’re told. Especially for those whom life is good, it’s easy to stay in the bubble and enjoy. Everyone else is a potential enemy.

That’s the message of “Smallfoot,” a modestly entertaining animation flick that will certainly thrill wee ones more than adults. I found the themes heavy-handed and the pacing rather draggy.

I bet kids under age 10 will love it, though, and that’s who it’s aimed squarely at.

Channing Tatum, really reaching for the upper register of his voice, plays Migo, a young yeti -- as in bigfoot, sasquatch, etc. It turns out bigfoots (feet?) are real, and living in bliss at the top of a cloud-covered mountain the Himalayas. Daily life is a pleasant grind of chores, some of which make little sense, and good times.

Migo goes about 20 feet tall, has luminous ivory-colored fur, no nose and two horns on his head, one broken. He sort of resembles a distant cousin of Sully from the “Monsters Inc.” movies.

Migo’s dad, Dorgle, is the head gong-ringer, whose job is to be catapulted across the top of the village each daybreak and smash his head into the giant gong that beckons the emergence of the sun, which in their lore is a sun-snail traveling across the sky. (Sounds loopy, but it isn’t worse than some human mythology I’ve heard.)

Time has taken its toll: Dorgle is rather short for a yeti -- Danny DeVito does the voice; get it? -- but used to be taller than the towering Migo. Soon he will pass the mantle to his enthusiastic son.

The yetis have their laws written in stones, quite literally. Their leader is the Stonekeeper (Common), who wears tiles of stones formed into a robe, each one inscribed with a truth that goes unquestioned. The weight of the law is a real thing in this case. “It takes a strong backbone,” Stonekeeper says.

Chief among their laws is, “There is no such thing as a smallfoot,” which is their word for humans. You might think it odd that there is a law just to disprove a negative, and there are a few quiet naysayers amongst the yeti. Among them is Gwangi, the largest of their kinds voiced quite well by LeBron James, and secretly their leader is Meechee (Zendaya), the Stonekeeper’s daughter.

Migo meets up with a smallfoot but his claims are discredited and he is banished. In his exile he journeys to the human town below the mountain and bumps into Percy Patterson (James Corden), a schmaltzy British wildlife broadcaster. Think Steve Irwin, but less brave and more annoying.

His plan was to fake a yeti sighting to save his fading career. So when Migo carries him back to his village as proof, it’s a boon to them both.

I liked how screenwriters Clare Sera and Karey Kirkpatrick (the latter also directed) handle the language barrier. To the humans, yetis sound like roaring bear-lions; to the yetis, humans make squeaky mouse-talk.

There are several songs in “Smallfoot,” though I’d call this more a movie with musical interludes than a straight-up musical. By far the best is “Let It Lie,” with Common rapping out the hidden history of the yeti.

A middling bit of animation, “Smallfoot” is built for small children to love and parents to endure. Business proposal: movie theaters start featuring double bills in which grownups drop off their kids to see this in a supervised theater while they pop next door for something more to their tastes.

Video review: "Annihilation"

“Annihilation” falls into that section of science fiction that’s more cerebral and contemplative than the rest. Despite the name, the genre can often be pretty dopey in its premises and storytelling.

It’s not the most entertaining film, but like “Contact,” to which it is a thematic cousin, its rewards operate more at the intellectual level than the gut.

Natalie Portman plays Lena, a scientist/soldier who’s chosen by fate and her own instincts to enter the Shimmer, a mysterious, growing sector of forbidding energy that cropped up a few years ago. So far the government has managed to keep it under wraps because it’s in a remote area, but it’s only a matter of time before it starts gobbling up entire cities.

Lena’s husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), went into the Shimmer a year ago and never came back -- no one ever does. She’d assumed him dead, but when he suddenly pops up out of nowhere, emotionally distant and physically ailing, she’s sucked into the consortium of science and military types reacting to the crisis.

Interestingly, the entire team going in is comprised of women. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the inscrutable Ventress, a psychiatrist leading the team. Gina Rodriguez is Anya, the group’s brash muscle. Tessa Thompson is Josie, a brilliant wallflower. And Tuva Novotny is Cass, the only one who makes an attempt to befriend Lena.

Obviously I don’t want to give away too much about what they find in the Shimmer, but suffice it to say some kind of alien force is messing around with the DNA of every living thing inside, turning it into a hothouse of toothsome horrors and gorgeous delights.

Written and directed by Alex Garland (“Ex Machina”) based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, “Annihilation” got a very mixed reaction from critics and audiences. It’s an engaging blend of horror, sci-fi and thriller elements, with a little bit of philosophical musings thrown in.

Bonus features are interesting, and organized unlike others I’ve seen. (You’ll need to spring for the Blu-ray version to get them, as the DVD contains zippo.)

The extras are organized into three parts, based on the journey the women take over the course of the movie. Each part contains a documentary short about an aspect of production, along with interviews with cast and crew reflecting on that topic.

“Southern Reach” looks at the concept of the story and translating it into film. “Area X” is about the transformation of live sets into the fantastical world. “To the Lighthouse” examines the visual effects and how they’re incorporated into the storytelling.

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Review: "Ferdinand"

It's interesting that the two best animated films of the year -- "Coco" and "Ferdinand," in that order -- have an overt Latin theme. "Ferdinand" is set in Spain against the backdrop of the popular national sport of bullfighting. It is an egregiously cruel and useless endeavor, but rather than take angry shots at bullfighting, "Ferdinand" shows us the pull of the opposite of aggressiveness and violence.

"Ferdinand" is a film about love, but also about masculinity. It's no mistake that there are literally zero female cows in this story, which focuses on young bull calves and later grown adults. They have been reared their entire lives being taught that the best -- and only -- joy in their lives will come from being selected by a matador to fight in the ring.

The matadors are, of course, still batting 1.000 in the ongoing contest, but the bulls don't know that. They are bulls, so the only legitimate form of behavior is to be aggressive and competitive with all other bulls.

Sound familiar? The nexus of sports and male behavior is often a toxic space.

Then along comes Ferdinand, a gentle little calf who prefers sniffing flowers to fighting. He's mocked by the other young bulls at the Casa de la Toro, a breeding and training ranch for their kind, and not a little bullying takes place. But he eventually escapes that crucible and grows up on a remote farm raised by a gentle girl, who nurtures that side of him.

And grow he does. Ferdinand ends up as a truly monstrous-sized bull, bigger than even than the greatest champion bulls of old. But he doesn't care about being the biggest or the strongest -- he just enjoys his life of quiet and peace.

(He is voiced by John Cena, which is a rather contradictory choice for a character who hates battle. I guess you could argue that since Cena is a fake fighter, that makes it somehow OK.)

Later Ferdinand finds himself back on the bull ranch, where he's once again forced to vie for a spot in the ring, or be sent to the meat factory next door.

He finds that his old tormentors have grown up, and added a few new faces. There is Valiente (Bobby Cannavale), chief bully and enforcer of the bull code. Peyton Manning does the voice of Guapo, who acts as Valiente's wingman but has star aspirations of his own. Anthony Anderson is Bones, the undersized bull who joins in the treatment of Ferdinand, mostly because he would be the next logical target.

David Tennant does the voice of Angus, a woolly bull from Scotland who can't see very well because of the long hair in his eyes. And Tim Nordquist is Maquina, the result of genetic splicing who doesn't speak much and has very robotic qualities.

Kate McKinnon delights as Lupe, a "calming goat" assigned to Ferdinand to keep him chill, but ends up acting as his bullfighting coach. She's a typical animated sidekick, mostly there for comic relief, but she also provides a lot of heart and not a little wisdom.

There's also a trio of trouble-making hedgehogs, another threesome of smug horses who all have Germanic accents for some reason, and El Primero, the aging matador (Miguel Ángel Silvestre), who insists on fighting the greatest bull for his final match.

"Ferdinand" has all the ingredients for an enjoyable kiddie flick -- plenty of action, cute critter antics, a bit of gastrointestinal humor. But it's the deeper themes that give the film surprising weight and meaning. Just like the bull who prefers flowers, this is a different kind of animated film that wants to do more than merely entertain.

Review: "Deepwater Horizon"

There are a lot of ways you could have attacked the story of Deepwater Horizon: emblem of corporate corruption, biggest oil disaster in world history, one selfless hero saving the day, etc. Director Peter Berg and screenwriters Matthew Sand and Matthew Michael Carnahan took the most obvious, but probably also the most dramatically effective route, turning “Deepwater Horizon” into a big-budget disaster flick.

The 2010 explosion of the Transocean oil rig spewed 210 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in massive environmental catastrophe whose effects are still being felt today. Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell play the leaders who struggle to stop the crisis and save lives.

An effective crew of supporting actors make up the chorus of other victims, notably Ethan Suplee, Gina Rodriguez and Dylan O’Brien. John Malkovich and James DuMont provide the villains, sniveling corporate honchos hanging around behind the workers, demanding that safety measures by shortcut to maximize profits.

The film, which is based on a detailed reconstruction of events by the New York Times, is viscerally gripping -- once the action gets going.

Until then, it’s a barely comprehensible mishmash of industry jargon and manly chest-puffing. The sound mix on the version I saw was poor, so it’s often hard to comprehend the dialogue. (Malkovich’s Louisiana accent, slathered on heavy like sugar on beignets, doesn’t help.)

Once the blowout of the drill occurs, seeping gas that turns the entire rig into an inferno, the film finds its footing and its verve. The rest of the way is a moment-by-moment banquet of terror and bravery, as men (and a woman or two) struggle to keep the rig from floating off course, snapping the line sunk deep into the ocean floor.

Wahlberg’s Mike Williams is chief electric technician, which makes him the top safety advocate onboard. Russell plays Jimmy “Mr. Jimmy” Harrell, the revered rig chief who commands the respect of his blue-collar crew. They’re both old-school film hero types, taciturn and direct, who believe in doing a job right rather than half-assing it and leaving a mess for the next guy.

But the construction of this project is already 43 days past schedule -- “the well from hell,” the crew dubs it -- which means millions in lost profits to the BP executives, who have come to pay a “friendly” visit. Ostensibly they’re there to laud Harrell and his team for their exemplary safety record. (No Hollywood hoke here.) But their real purpose is to push things along and cut corners.

“Hope ain’t a tactic,” Mike warns, to deaf ears.

The conflict quickly leads to disaster, as a geyser of mud, oil and gas storms up the line, resulting in back-breaking explosions that killed 11 crew. Kate Hudson plays Wahlberg’s wife, doing the usual disaster-movie-wife thing, making frantic calls and providing an emotional presence amid the storm.

Berg fills his screen with impressive blooms of fire, and accompanied with the near-constant impact of shrapnel raining down like bullets, it makes for a truly harrowing hellscape of death and destruction.

“Deepwater Horizon” accomplishes several things well, including rendering how the accident unfolded understandable for a general audience. Investigations have concluded it was a scenario in which virtually everything that could go wrong, did.

The film also vividly chronicles the peril the crew members faced, including the often competing impulses to do their jobs or save their own necks. A lot of people have a negative view of the oil industry, often well-deserved, but the movie uncovers not a small measure of nobility underneath the grimy surface.