Movie Review: The Wild Robot

My God, what a gut punch.

I already had a hunch that I wanted to see The Wild Robot when I first caught its trailer before Pixar's Inside Out 2, this summer. Maybe I was in a different headspace, as Inside Out 2 didn't get me to shed a tear - maybe I was so busy with the themes and events in the Pixar film that it took me out a bit, and rewatching it later will unlock the emotion and I'll be a bawling mess. In comparison, the trailer for Dreamworks' painted CGI film about a robot adapting to the wilderness extracted tears from me right away.

Before getting into the review proper, can I say - I love the renaissance that CGI animated movies have been having lately? I get this impression that after a movie as nuts as Sony Pictures' Into the Spider-Verse showed what could be done by having multiple clashing art styles together in one movie, other studios took notice and began to experiment so that CGI movies could stand out, look different, feel different - BE different. The Mitchells VS The Machines, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish... I'm growing fond of "painted CGI", the technique where regular CGI animation is superposed with additional 2D effects to achieve something new.

The Wild Robot is a major example of the technique, painting over its animation to give it a watercolor feel, like we're watching actual paintings about nature. It's easily one of the most gorgeous animated films I've ever seen, a bold statement to make in a world where competition in that field is so fierce. As frequently happens for Dreamworks, this movie is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, written by Peter Brown and published in 2016. It's also very ambitious; as I watched it I couldn't shake that impression in my mind that Dreamworks were aiming for their own WALL-E, a sentiment reinforced by the first trailer for the film containing only one line of dialogue. It's a very gutsy move no matter the film, but in animation, it feels even moreso.

The story

A container with a robot inside is found by otters at the top of a waterfall on an island, and its occupant is activated by accident. The machine awakens and defines itself as ROZZUM unit 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o). Its purpose is to receive orders and do what it is told to do. (Since all material refers to the robot as female, so will I.) ROZZUM's first steps in nature are... eventful, to say the least. Yeah, you'd imagine the wildlife wouldn't be too keen on a machine, no matter how advanced, exploring their territory.

Increasingly upset by the lack of directives or orders, ROZZUM sits and spends some time (days? weeks? months? ...years???) in some kind of statis, studying the environment and the animals, eventually getting to the point where she can understand all of their animal talk. From here on, she understands them all, and so do we, as we see the events from her perspective; however, she's not any more accepted or with a purpose.

After she's chased by a large bear, ROZZUM falls on a nest, accidentally killing a goose and crushing all of the eggs but one. Her systems detect life within the shell. She protects the egg from predators, including a very persistent fox (Pedro Pascal). The egg later hatches and the teeny tiny runt gosling (Kit Connor) imprints on the robot, who doesn't know how to react to the adorable bird following her around. It is by talking with other animals about her situation that ROZZUM (who eventually adopts the name Roz for the sake of simplicity) is given a purpose: To care for the hatchling.

She names him Brightbill, and is given further goals: The little thing will have to migrate when fall comes. And for that, he needs to grow, be well-fed, learn to swim and, most importantly, learn to fly fror extended periods of time. Taking on the role of mother about as well as you'd imagine a robot would, Roz must make sure her child can take on the journey; she even gets unlikely help from Fink, the aforementioned fox, himself also an outcast on the island.

Through all this, there's also the mystery of Roz's origins... where she came from, why she was found on the island... she does have some way of contacting her makers so they can pick her up, but should she? And if she does, what will they do?

The review

Wow.

I think we might have the best animated film of 2024 here.

And considering I love damn near everything, that's no small statement to make.

The story is... admittedly, very little we haven't seen before. A robot discovering emotion? A robot taking care of a very young creature? A metaphor on parenthood? We can sit here and say "it's been done" all day, but what matters isn't that it's being done again, it's how it's being done. If you're telling a story with very common elements, be as creative and original about it as possible. Director Chris Sanders is no strangers to movies about family, having directed Lilo and Stitch for Disney, and How To Train Your Dragon and The Croods for Dreamworks.

Perhaps the best aspect relating to family in The Wild Robot isn't just about Roz becoming a mother to a little gosling, but the family she builds around herself, not just with Fink the fox, but also with the other animals of the island as they learn to accept her, and she returns that trust tenfold when the situation takes a turn for the dire.

I'll never stop singing the praises of this film's visuals. But everything here knocks it out of the park. The score by composer Kris Bowers is great. The humor is on point; I swear, I was frequently laughing through my tears. And, of course, as I said,  Putting aside the general themes, the script is interesting, and events happen at a logical pace. However, there IS a lot going on in the film, to the point where the 100 minutes are quite busy - perhaps a little too much so. There's a bit of a pacing issue as a result, but it's nothing that really breaks the enjoyment.

Joining the cast are Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

I really don't know if there's anything else I could add, really; I usually ramble on for much longer, but that covers it all. Maybe I'm holding back so as to not spoil too much (though, in all fairness, the trailers do say a lot). If this film beats Disney or Pixar at the Oscars in the animation category/ies, it will be very well-deserved. This is the movie I'll be rooting for. I cannot recommend this one enough.