Smallfoot is Much Better than its Target Audience

Smallfoot (2018)

Smallfoot was a delightful family movie. It was fun, fast, and had a clear and quality message. At just over one hour and a half, it was the perfect length for a family to enjoy, unless your children are monsters, like most of the audience in my showing. On its merits, Smallfoot was one of the best movies of the year, but the small children running around and yelling really detracted from the experience. It was an excellently cast animated feature, with every actor portraying a critical role having at least one standout moment, but that small child thought that he was a bigger star than Channing Tatum or LeBron James. The music was great as well, except when kids tried to sing along to songs they had never heard before. The songs were better than the songs in Trolls, but not as good as the songs in Moana, to give context. Except Common’s song, which was amazing and gave me chills. The animation was crisp, with some of the best hair and fur dynamics I have seen in a digitally animated film, but the eye was really drawn to the children running through the aisles and bumping into seats. It even had a great message about perception and subtext of deeper societal criticism, like religion and lying to protect people, but I was distracted by a group of kids that made me agree more with Thanos as the movie progressed. If you want to see this movie, I recommend you go to a later show when children are in bed. Overall, I really like the movie and give it 4 out of 5 monster children at the theater.