Metacritic reviews

A delight, a jokey-smart cartoon that enlightens and teaches even as it entertains. Because we need to learn that sometimes there really are monsters “out there,” and sometimes, the monsters are us.

While it only occasionally rises to the clever levels of its inspired jump-off point, Smallfoot, an animated romp about a civilization of Yetis who make the discovery that the legendary pint-size human isn’t a mythological creature after all, carries sufficient charm and a bit of unexpected depth to justify its breezy existence.

There’s something undeniably ballsy about a children’s film that’s so insistent about pushing young viewers to think bigger, to be open to new ideas and question culturally coded notions of good and evil.

It’s cute, it’s cuddly and Tatum is charming as the lovable, well-meaning goof. Young children who haven’t seen every trick and trope done better a thousand times will love Smallfoot, but for the rest, it’s instantly forgettable, like a 96-minute memory gap.

It might be hyperbolic to call Smallfoot the most dangerous film of the year, but it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.

Smallfoot provides more complex food for thought than most mainstream animation, but the overall results are still disappointingly bland.

Smallfoot really flounders with its obligatory message-mongering: a hodgepodge of didacticism about the importance of celebrating differences, asking questions, never fearing the unknown, or judging someone because they look different. Plenty of sound lessons in there, to be sure, but without a singular focus, they all blend into one.

It’s a playful inversion of the bigfoot legend, cautioning against unthinking compliance, championing curiosity and encouraging putting oneself in another’s shoes (or feet). Still, this all-ages affair is as blunt as it is busy; children will warm to the movie’s ceaseless energy, but parents might take longer to thaw.

It’s still mostly just a time-passer for younger kids — and, absent a strong point of view, as much of a hedged bet as its narration-and-song opening.

It’s messy and distressingly unmemorable, which is a shame since there are no shortage of great Looney Tunes-level cartoon gags wasted along the way, including an ingenious rope bridge sequence worthy of golden-age Warner Bros. animation.