The Wild Robot is programmed to deliver a beautiful world with sweet story to boot
The Wild Robot. // Courtesy Fantastic Fest 2024
The Wild Robot starts screening at Kansas City area theaters tomorrow.
Fans of DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon are in for a treat with The Wild Robot, directed by Dragon co-director and co-writer, Chris Sanders. Like the studio’s emotionally impactful fantasy series, the new film offers heartstring-tugging and inspiration in equal measures.
The story takes place in the distant future, where robots have become commonplace, thanks to a company called Universal Dynamics and their Rozzum line of helper bots.
A freak storm derails a delivery-in-progress, stranding robot “Roz” (Lupita Nyong’o) on a remote island. Undeterred, Roz decides to follow through on her prime directive, “helping complete any task” for her client—in this case, wild creatures in need of assistance.
Her search for tasks leads her to an accidentally orphaned egg, which hatches a gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor), who immediately imprints on Roz. A kindly Possum, Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara) mentions that it’s now Roz’s job to ensure the tiny guy survives. Roz sets out to become the best mother she can be, as she tries to teach her new charge how to eat, swim, and fly on his own. Not exactly the easiest task for a robot.
Not enough can be said of how great The Wild Robot looks. It’s a major departure from what DreamWorks has done before, with a painterly, textured aspect to the forest and scenery, and the various wildlife a blend of cel-shaded figures and CGI. It’s stunning in its simplicity, and stands out from most other contemporary computer animated films.
The same can be said of the film’s star-studded voice acting, which gives each animal a distinct personality. It helps audiences warm to the occasionally conniving Fink the fox (Pedro Pascal), and gives O’Hara one more entry in her stable of memorable characters. Not to mention the head nod that will inevitably happen when you hear the gruff bass of Ving Rhames echo out of a stern hawk who assists Brightbill in his attempts to fly.
The Wild Robot does hit some third-act weaknesses, as story beats start to repeat themselves, and the film settles on a series of endings rather than one, as if Sanders can’t figure out how to wrap things up. That doesn’t necessarily hamper things—The Wild Robot earns the right to stand alongside the likes of The Iron Giant, WALL-E, and, yes, How To Train Your Dragon.
From a bird’s eye view, The Wild Robot might just look like another kid’s movie. However, curious audiences will be rewarded by a movie that cares just as much about telling a compelling story as it does about being cute. It’s playing by a formula, sure, but when that formula is a guaranteed recipe for success (especially when it looks and sounds as good as The Wild Robot does, it’s hard to find much fault with it.
The Wild Robot starts screening at Kansas City area theaters tomorrow.
