Movie Review: ‘The Wild Robot’

10/01/2024 by Corrye Van Caeseele-Cook

Plot: Based on the popular children’s book by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot follows the exploits of the utilitarian robot ROZZUM Unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o). When ROZ is stranded on an island devoid of human life she finds herself without a programmed purpose. Surrounded by wildlife, ROZ has no choice but to translate the local fauna’s language and offer her services. Unfortunately, ROZ accidentally falls off a cliff and crushes a goose nest that leaves a solitary egg. With the assistance of an opportunistic fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), ROZ names the young good Brightbill (Kit Conner) and decides to raise him as her own. But in order to fulfill her sworn tasks, ROZ will have to protect Brightbill from the outside world, encourage the disparate animals of the island to work together, and evolve beyond her own programming.

Review: DreamWorks Animation possesses an indelible legacy. Beginning with 1998’s Prince of Egypt and continuing on with such hits as Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and Trolls, the studio has produced some of the most well received and lucrative animated films of the last three decades. Sadly, director Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot marks the last DreamWorks Animation film made entirely in studio, as going forward the studio will rely heavily on outside vendors. Well if this is the end of an era, The Wild Robot is one Hell of an exclamation point to end the sentence.

Wildly imaginative, stunningly beautiful, impeccably animated, and bursting with heart, The Wild Robot is quite simply a masterpiece of animation and the best animated film since UP. Writer/Director Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) once again proves to be one of the best directors working in the genre. Balancing heartfelt sincerity with humor and strong but not pedantic themes, Sanders directs a star studded cast including Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, and Ving Rhames. Sanders even gives some nice nods to the science fiction greats who pioneered robot stories, referencing Asimov’s Laws of Robotics and Karel Capek’s science fiction play Rossum’s Universal Robots which coined the term “robot.”

Aside from the direction, I can’t overstate how fantastic Sanders’ screenplay is. In modern cinema the tendency today seems to be to lead with a message, while forgetting to tell a great story. Sanders rightly chooses the opposite. We are invested in ROZ, Brightbill, and Fink’s story because we genuinely care about them. We root for Brightbill to fly, for Fink (a dynamic and layered performance from Pedro Pascal) to gain perspective, and for ROZ to embrace motherhood. When those events happen in spectacular fashion, it makes that much more of an impact. It also makes the themes of motherhood, communal cooperation, and evolving beyond your “programming” resonate that much stronger.

The main reason those themes resonate, is because of the committed and triumphant performance of Lupita Nyong’o as ROZ. Often people belittle voice acting as something “less than,” a subset of thespianism that doesn’t count as much because there’s no visual component aside from the animation. To quote Nicholas Hoult’s Tyler in The Menu, “Yeah, those people are idiots.” With The Wild Robot, Nyong’o delivers her second stellar performance of the year after A Quiet Place: Day One. It was a blessing to go on Nyong’o’s journey as her ROZ evolves throughout the film. As a father myself I particularly connected with the themes of parenthood. She taps into the idea that a lot of us are making it up as we go, the struggle to get our children to stand on their own two feet, the heartbreak when they have to leave the nest, and the willingness to sacrifice anything for our children. To put it in perspective, my wife isn’t much of a crier but she was sobbing by the end of The Wild Robot.

What elevates The Wild Robot above other animated features is–not surprisingly–it’s animation style. Sanders eschews the standard CGI photorealism seen in many modern animated films as he felt the story’s innocent tone and nature setting required a different look. While the characters are certainly geometrical, the surfaces themselves possess a hand-painted look, particularly the sky and water environments. In many ways the look is almost a Monet painting come to life with heavy influences of Disney classics like Bambi and Hayao Miyazaki’s works like My Neighbour Totoro. Some of the sequences are simply astounding, particularly Brightbill’s flight lessons and a battle between the island animals and outside robots toward the end of the film. It’s complimented by a beautiful and passionate score from Kris Bowers and sublime cinematography from Chris Stover.

Although animation typically isn’t my favorite genre I know greatness when I see it. The Wild Robot is a movie that’s going to stick with me for awhile. It’s a majestic masterpiece and one of the best films of 2024. See this sucker in theaters and don’t just bring your friends and family members.

Bring everybody.

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See