Of all the DreamWorks releases from the past decade or so, only the first Dragon film and Rise of the Guardians stand out to me as exceptional - although Captain Underpants is far better than I ever would have predicted, and there are a handful of films by the studio that I still need to catch up on (including Trolls). At the end of the day, a movie doesn't have to be great, or even especially good, for me to have fun with it. So anything that DreamWorks releases, I'm still interested in seeing - eventually.
I went into Abominable without much in the way of expectations, which is probably the best way to approach anything by modern DreamWorks. Abominable's narrative is pretty slight, and - as lots of reviews have noted - some elements feel inspired by superior animated films (most people seem to be drawing comparisons with the Dragon trilogy, but if you ask me, Abominable most clearly borrows from
As for the surface-level similarities to Smallfoot and Missing Link, well, they really are just surface-level. It's fun seeing three films take such different approaches to a shared topic; it's just a shame that the release dates for these films were all in such close proximity to each other, as I imagine that Smallfoot, first out the gate (and easily the weakest of the bunch), may have distracted from the other two.
Abominable is fairly middle of the road, but it's charming enough that I was willing to turn off my critical eye and just along with the film's sense of adventure. It'll be interesting to see what Pearl Studio does going forward. I haven't followed the in-and-outs of the studio's history very closely, but I guess it's no longer affiliated with DreamWorks, is that right? Looks like Glen Keane is directing their next feature (Over the Moon), so that seems promising.
@ShyViolet, @Daniel - Thanks, and hi to the both of you! I wasn't sure if anyone would even remember who I was, haha; it's been so long, and I was never very involved here. But it's fun to stop in again.
. It’s great to see you again!
(And yes, I’ll confess that even with a few exceptions like Panda and Dragon, this was a problem for me even when they were still an independent studio. Especially during their last five years before being sold. When Home and Penguins came out that was basically the end for me. 
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