Talkie Tuesday: Smallfoot

"Smallfoot exists, suckas!"

Hello everyone!

After being thoroughly amused by watching The Rock serenade as Maui and his 'You're Welcome' song from Moana, I felt the need to go and watch another cartoon-style movie instead of an action flick or anything of the sort.

I'd heard about tonight's blog post theme before but never got to it.

Why?

Well, I kind of have to be in the mood, I suppose.

And then of course, I keep getting distracted during the week by the Turkish soap opera I watch, Siyah Beyaz Ask.

I know. First world problems!

But anyway.

Without further ado, let's put our warmest winter jackets on, because we're going up high in the mountains. We'll try to locate Smallfoot!

If you think this is a word game on the usual Big Foot, you're right, because it is.

Here, we don't get to see humans searching for Big Foot, but we see a WHOLE VILLAGE OF BIG FOOTS AND THEY HAVE A MYTH.

The myth: Small Foot exists, somewhere.

Only, you see, they have these stones in the village ...

Let's start this story properly.

Migo, voiced by Channing Tatum (which I only figured out about half an hour into the movie; yes, I'm slow), is the son of the village gong ringer (him voiced by none other than Danny DeVito!), which basically means that, every morning, his dad gets up, straps himself into a huge slingshot, and is tossed across the distance to bang his head into the stone gong, which both announces the sun's rising, and wakes the entire village up.

The villagers each have their own tasks, getting ice, carving it, rotating this machinery they know nothing about, but their massive, major mantra is that they shouldn't ask questions, they just need to push them down, down, down if they have any, and forget about them.

Hmm. Sounds familiar?

Anyway, the Yetis live almost on top of a mountain which they believe is held up by mammoths under a sea of clouds. So only the mammoths and nothing are under those clouds, and they have to stay safe on top of the mountain.

But Migo, during a rather botched attempt to make a trial gong ring run, is flung across the mountain (in very Wile E Coyote style) and witnesses an aeroplane crashing down.

This is where he firsts sees the mythical Smallfoot, but the pilot kind of freaks and runs back down int the foggy cloudbank, and Migo races back to the village to tell them about his discovery. But Stonekeeper (the chief and, incidentally, the guy who wears a robe of stones on which the rules for the village are written) waves off Migo's claims and banishes him from the village.

Migo is then picked up bya couple other Yetis who bring him to none other than Meechee (Zendaya), the Stonekeeper's daughter who believes in the existence of Smallfoot (not to mention Migo has a crush on her).

So their plan now is to convince the villagers these small beings exist, for which they drop Migo down from their village cliffs into the clouds, lose the rope (because Meechee's brother comes a-snooping even though he doesn't know he's snooping) and cause Migo to fall ALL THE WAY DOWN into the valley. Where hey! There's Smallfoot!

Talking about a particular Smallfoot, documentary maker Percy (James Corden) has been trying to get a good story going for a while now, not that it's been working, and even heard about the Yeti from that pilot who came back down. He doesn't believe it, however, and wants to film with a fake Yeti suit, much to his friend Brenda's disgust, and then runs straight into Migo.

Wrapped up nicely like a little sausage, Percy is then transported up the mountain, nearly freezes, is roasted back to existence over an open flame (I can hear Dwalin cussing all the way from The Hobbit about this), and ends up saving Migo from a bear trap after the two run into a really annoyed momma bear who lays into them for making a racket and trying to wake her entire family up from hibernation.

After wrapping Migo's toe with duct tape, the two finally return to the village, where everyone oohs and aahs appropriately, but Stonekeeper is less than pleased.

He shows Migo the truth behind the village - and reveals the Conspiracy!

The Yeti used to live with humans down below, but humans turned nasty so the Yeti ran up the slopes where humans can't breathe the thin air. Each of the stones was then made up as the mechanics of living above and hiding from the people were established, and so the duty of each Stonekeeper is to keep the secret (including that they create the clouds).

Besides, Percy's about to die since, you know, thin air and all that. Not to mention, after hearing this, and worried about his people, Migo lies and says Smallfoot is actually a hairless yak. But Meechee rescues Percy before he dies and takes him back down the mountain, prompting a wild chase after her because ... weeeeell, humans, right?

Migo and the rest of her friends (sans the one who can NEVER do anything without being a philosopher about it) rush down just in time to save her and then go on the run together. Humans are TOTAL idiots.

Percy, reviving, runs into Brenda as he tries to get to the Yeti first and save them, and eventually manages to tranquilize Migo so that he can wear the fake Yeti suit and thus cover the Yetis' escape while he gets arrested (and Stonekeeper does some amazing stone-throwing).

Afterwards, however, Migo explains the entire truth to the village and they jointly descend from the mountain, where they face a police barricade until Percy and Brenda step out to stand by the Yetis' side, followed slowly by other curious, and reason-governed humans.

And so begins a new era for them all!

This was a fantastically hilarious movie with Tatum's quips and Corden's ridiculous high-pitched shrieks, but it also had some really great song work by Zendaya and a lovely message that rings especially true today in our time: why should you fear something or someone who's different? In many cases, they just want to be your friends, too!

And since it's done in cartoon style to reach wider audiences, beginning with educating the little ones, I'd say it's a rousing success on that account!

xx

*images and video not mine