Abominable

(G) ★★★★

Director: Jill Culton.

Cast: (voices of) Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, Tsai Chin, Michelle Wong.

Yeti's love eating the heads of human children.

If you took Steven Spielberg's E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial, mixed it with some healthy dollops of Hayao Miyazaki, ran it through some impressive CG animation, and set it in China, you might end up with something close to Abominable.

The second collab between Dreamworks and Pearl Studios (formerly Oriental Dreamworks) is a "help the creature get home" family adventure that is filled with so much fun and wonder that you just want to give the whole damned movie a big hug. It's utterly charming and downright beautiful, flourishing on themes which celebrate family, nature and the importance of doing the right thing.

Abominable's heroine is Yi (Bennet), a driven teen trying to save money for the cross-China trip she and her family dreamt of taking. But when she discovers an injured Yeti hiding on the roof of her apartment building, she drops everything to help the creature (which she nicknames Everest) to get back to its home (which is also Everest), with two of her neighbours along for the ride.

(And yep, this film was going to be called Everest, but they changed it to Abominable, probably to avoid confusion with the film that came out four years ago called Everest that no one was ever going to mistake for this film.)

There's a lot to like about Abominable. It doesn't have the depth of CG insta-classics like, say, almost every Pixar film, but it says the right things and makes all the right moves. There is genuine warmth and heart in its story of Yi and her friends helping a lost creature get home. It has its bad guys and its moments of darkness, but the overwhelming sense is one of beautiful joy.

A lot of this comes through in its Miyazaki-esque love of nature and application of magic. The Japanese director's work has always blossomed with mystical forces and revelled in the way people interact with the environment - check out Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and more for a long list of examples. The magic at the centre of Abominable is similar, and sparks some memorable moments, including a floral tidal wave, a blossoming statue, and an aerial bombing involving blueberries.

The voice cast is great, led by Bennet's Yi, who is an excellent and interesting heroine. Yi is big-hearted and talented but misguided when it comes to her family. Equally intriguing is Dr Burnish (Izzard), who is painted in increasingly dynamic strokes as the story progresses.

More family friendly than that other CG Yeti outing, the under-rated Smallfeet, Abominable is adorable.