‘The Wild Robot’ review: Machine adventure is the best family film of the year
THE WILD ROBOT
Running time: 142 minutes. Rated PG (action/peril and thematic elements). In theaters.
Wall-E and Iron Giant, meet Rozzum.
Or, Roz for short. She is the latest nuts-and-bolts creature to capture the imagination of movie-goers and the star of “The Wild Robot” — the best family film of the year.
From DreamWorks Animation, “Robot” instantly joins the ranks of that studio’s most memorable properties, such as the wondrous “How To Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda.”
Around the time “Dragon” was released in 2010, I began preferring DreamWorks to the critically worshipped Pixar and its yappy Ivy League blobs.
Like that cold-blooded-but-heartwarming adventure about a one-winged fire-breather, “Robot” doesn’t set out to be the class know-it-all that back-pats adults with puns and overly clever “a-ha!”s.
Instead, writer-director Chris Sanders (of, you guessed it, “Dragon”) goes right for his character’s souls — and ours.
Roz is a futuristic robo-assistant, like an Alexa or Siri, who can walk, assimilate and help around the house. However, she’s not of much use when her shipping package washes ashore on a faraway island inhabited only by animals.
The android is nibbled, scratched, chased, attacked and rained on. So, Roz enters into a hibernation-like “learning mode,” attempts to go full Dr. Dolittle and understand what the furry scamps are screeching about.
Her plan works. Too bad what the possums, beavers, porcupines and bears are hsss-ing is “monster!” and “kill it!”
Roz is loathed, totally alone and itching to leave until she accidentally crushes all but one egg of an idle nest.
As her assigned task, she becomes fixated on helping the surviving baby bird grow up. And from there, “Wild Robot” turns into a tearjerker about parenting, its highs and hardships. Without expressly saying so, it’s a wise and sweet ode to adoption.
The gosling, who Roz designates 0001 and then Brightbill (Kit Connor), believes the mega-metal is his mom.
“I do not have the programming to be a mother,” Roz, voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, says.
But Fink (Pedro Pascal), a feisty fox, insists all she has to do is teach the feathery tyke to “eat, swim and fly by Fall.” That’s when the flock heads south for the Winter.
Coming of age, for a goose, takes just a few short months. We get a “Rocky” montage set to a song by Maren Morris.
All of that sounds nice and cuddly, yet Sanders doesn’t shy away from either the perils of the untamed outdoors (these violent beasts aren’t Sleeping Beauty’s woodland critters) or the angst and confusion of adolescence.
Brightbill, a runt, wants to discover more about his kind, which leads to tantrums and resentment. Roz still sees it as her mission to help him fly the nest, so to speak. However, her goal — and affection — evolve.
She’s not unlike if Brent Spiner’s Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” suddenly became maternal, if you can picture that.
The situation darkens. There are also explosive action sequences and the occasional, if gentle, acknowledgement of death that could be scary for the youngest viewers.
Whether the fireworks of fights or family, Sanders’ picture is gorgeous throughout.
Being about both nature and machine, “Robot” doesn’t lean too visually hard into either. It has neither the distancing sleekness of an Apple commercial nor the magic-free photo-realism of “Planet Earth.”
The film instead chooses a raggedy middle ground that yields unexpectedly sumptuous imagery, such as when a kaleidoscope of butterflies leap off a tree or the geese hurdle through the air. And Roz gradually, shrewdly becomes one with her mossy new environment.
What I love most about “The Wild Robot,” though, is that it doesn’t employ the increasingly tired formula of, “Here are some in-jokes for adults and some talking Tic Tacs for kiddos.” Everything about this movie is for everybody.
It’s a breathtakingly human film — about a bird and a bot.
