Bigfoot Family

This animated film starts off strong, but soon loses its way a bit. After a cute set-up with charming characters, attractive environmental messages, a stirring soundtrack, and a unique setting, this film nearly throws it all away in the second half as it devolves into 40 minutes of needless action. This change in tone accompanies the shift in focus from the "good guys" of the Bigfoot Family to the "bad guys" working for the oil company, and it comes with painfully awkward, gratuitous lines like the "hired gun" who says he once used a bomb "to blow up my old foster home when I was a kid." He and a bunch of security guards are put in charge of trying to kill Bigfoot and his family, including the teenage son, who they try to shoot with tranquilizer darts, drive off a cliff, shove down a mining shaft, and attack with killer drones. For a children's film, having characters show such callousness in attempting to kill a child, even an animated one, is neither funny nor fun.

The highlights of the film are the Bigfoot family characters and the animals. The humorous rapport between the well-meaning pet bear and the boastful raccoon provides some laughs, and the wild animals -- the lone wolf who knows his place in the wild, the perpetually-pursued snow bunny, and the aggressive moose with the "get off my land" message -- bring purpose and a certain depth to the story. They embody the film's environmental messages. Kids won't likely miss the "big oil is bad" moral, but they could take away a confused message from toss-away lines about "journalistic integrity" and "fake news." The film's European makers also seemed to want to poke a little fun by comparing pleasant Canadian border guards to their hostile, militaristic American counterparts. Meanwhile, Bigfoot's rushing to a protest site to do something good with his newfound fame is meant to be admirable, and the cause that draws him turns out to be worthwhile. But his ignorance about the actual situation there, his lack of preparation or research before landing -- apparent in his first selfies and videos (that go "viral" thanks to some fast editing by his teenage son) -- could also send the wrong message about prioritizing clicks over cause.