news
The review of The Wild Robot is all heart and all flair as it tells a straightforward but powerful story through a rich tapestry of colours, feelings, and dramatic situations.
Chris Sanders, who co-directed Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Croods, wrote and directed the DreamWorks Animation production The Wild Robot, which is as wild and wacky as it is moving and magical. It marks the medium’s resolute return to its colourful and vivid hand-painted moorings. The remarkably perfect The Wild Robot, which is based on Peter Brown’s 2016 children’s book of the same name, is about an orphaned gosling and a marooned helper-robot whose paths cross in a tragic and turbulent situation on an island where humans do not live.
A deep connection develops between the two, one a shunned avian with no family and the other a lost machine primed for acts that are intrinsically devoid of emotion. A poignant mother-adopted daughter tale that effortlessly crosses the line between the instinctive and the mechanical emerges from their bond.
In a forest where predators roam freely and the weak are constantly in danger of extinction, the brilliantly done animated film combines technology, nature, the vitality of wildlife, and humanity (despite the lack of human characters in the plot) to create a lively examination of motherhood and interspecies solidarity.
In an environment where might is right, survival is up to chance, and kindness is unheard of, is it possible to have peace and harmony? The robot finds new opportunities (at first, unfathomable) that illuminate the path ahead for her and the gosling as she explores the island and meets characters like Thunderbolt (Ving Rhames), Longneck (Bill Nighy), an elderly Canada goose who helps the lonely gosling come of age, and Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), a maternal possum.
The storytelling is of the highest calibre, and the delicious animation is incredibly immersive. The Wild Robot is all heart and all flair as it tells a straightforward but powerful tale of learning, unlearning, and assimilating across boundaries that divide different species. It does this by weaving a rich tapestry of colours, emotions, and dramatic situations.
A Universal Dynamics shipment of six robots is destroyed in a shipwreck, and the only person left alive is Rozzum Unit 7134, also known as Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o). She intones, “A Rozzum always completes its task,” as she washes up on an island. Simply ask.
However, there is no one to ask on the island. Her persistent request for instructions naturally flummoxes the animals she encounters in an unfamiliar environment devoid of buyers and consumers. Roz is also at a loose end. She considers going back to her starting point, but a malfunctioning transmitter prevents her from doing so.
She is being pursued by a grizzly bear (Mark Hamill’s voice) as she keeps looking for a task. She kills the mother goose by crushing a nest as she runs away. Only one egg makes it out alive. Roz defends it against Fink (Pedro Pascal), a ravenous fox. The Canada goose is born when the egg hatches. On the island, Roz discovers her purpose. She befriends the foxy Fink as well.
Roz raises Brightbill (Kit Connor), the gosling’s given name by her and Fink, and teaches him to swim and fly, but not before overcoming difficult obstacles that make the tasks nearly impossible.
As she struggles to emphasise her purpose in life, Roz pretends early on in the movie that she is “programmed for physical mimicry.” Despite the fact that no one can immediately utilise that quality, she continues to illustrate the benefits of flexibility, regardless of how challenging it may be. She improves gradually but steadily and learns to react to emotions rather than just following directions.
Themes of great importance are woven throughout the surprisingly straightforward narrative, from the advantages of peaceful coexistence to the predicament of the marginalised and misunderstood in ecosystems governed by the power of the majority.
Brightbill and Roz are both on the periphery of the world they have to navigate. The traditional dilemma of the archetypal outsider is summed up by the creatures of the island, who treat Roz with contempt and treat her as a hideous outcast.
The weakling who does not belong, Brightbill is the runt of the litter. On the island where the laws of nature dictate that some animals will be predators and others will be prey to them, Roz and Fink, who complain that no one likes or trusts him, unite with her in their struggle to fit in with her kind.
Roz is taken back to Universal Dynamics by Vontra (Stephanie Hsu), who arrives on an aerial ship. Roz is told bluntly, You do not belong in the wilderness. She is adamant about doing so. “I am a crazy robot,” she says. Vontra says, “You are the wrong thing and you are in the wrong place.” Her words, “You are not supposed to feel,”
Even though some of the ideas it presents may seem a bit cliched, The Wild Robot never falters thanks to its persistent sense of drama. Reiterating axioms that will never or should never become obsolete and redundant is never a bad idea.
In his first animated film, composer Kris Bowers creates a thrilling soundtrack that soars, dives, and floats like the creatures we see on screen battling against the odds to survive predatory attacks and other disasters.
Give the child in you the chance to enjoy the beauty and subtle power of The Wild Robot, whether or not you enjoy animated films. We have not seen one as good in a long time.
Cast:
Kit Connor, Pedro Pascal, and Lupita Nyong’o
The director
Chris Sanders