Smallfoot (2018)

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.