The Wild Robot is the new Dreamworks animation film and is written and directed by Chris Sanders based off of the children’s book who not only directed 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon but also worked as a story artist at Disney on such films as Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King, this story takes place on an island where a Robot named Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) has crash landed and has no idea where she is or any way to get home, after an accident she befriends a small goose who comes to think of it as his mother.
The Wild Robot brims with heart and charm and whimsy and throughout this movie I was having a good time with it, I don’t think it is as good as Transformers One but that’s a high bar for this School Holiday crop of releases, Sanders does a really good job directing the film and his imprint on it is felt in every frame and there is a lot of good animation on display here, having that blend of digital crispness and hand drawn artwork which is a tricky balance to get right but Sanders’s long experience in both fields of animation makes this possible.
The film also has a lot of fun voice performances, Nyong’o does good work as Roz and I also enjoyed Pedro Pascal as a wily fox who Roz comes to befriend, I also enjoyed seeing Mark Hamill show up in a small role as well as Ving Rhames as an Eagle who teaches Brightbill how to fly properly.
Where I felt the film wasn’t as good was in some of its storytelling, now don’t get me wrong this is in no way shape or form a bad movie but there were times where it got a little too familiar with some of its story beats such as the ugly duckling and learning to accept who you are, again this is not in any way to say that these beats weren’t done badly it was more of a reflection for me that they felt a little too familiar and dragged the film down to a certain extent.
And so that was the Wild Robot and it’s a cute, fun and charming family film that will do its job in the School Holidays though younger children might be advised to stay away from this one, 3 out of 5.
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