Review of Smallfoot (2018) by Wayne K — 06 Dec 2018

Smallfoot starts with a lot of promise. The animation is beautiful, the characters seem likeable, the story sets up some interesting twists and it got a few big laughs out of me. Unfortunately, either through losing their nerve or sheer laziness, the filmmakers start falling back on trite plot beats and predictable story progression.

James Corden is an actor and personality I personally find completely insufferable, and this film demonstrates exactly why. He's never able to play anyone other than himself, either in live action or animation, and as such I find his character as annoying the man himself.

In the beginning I thought it was going to have a message about using critical thinking and not blindly following tradition, but it's soon reduced to the being the millionth movie to say 'Just because you look different, doesn't mean you should be excluded.

' It gets progressively more tired and boring as it goes on, and it throws in the obligatory toilet humour early on, almost like its warning us about how bad things will get. If the entire film had been as enjoyable as the first 20 odd minutes, I would have loved it.

But it's tendency to resort to easy jokes and hackneyed storytelling renders it as a huge missed opportunity.