It’s been a while since I got the chance to review a kid-centric movie and to rectify that, I set my sights on “The Wild Robot” last weekend.
Overall the film had plenty of adorable moments and jokes for kids and adults to enjoy.
It isn’t exactly a new concept to humanize robots and their respective artificial intelligence – other notable family-friendly flicks include WALL-E (2008), The Iron Giant (1999), Robots (2005), Big Hero 6 (2014) and Flubber (1998).
Wild Robot is just a little different since it focuses more on how a robot overcomes its programming to form relationships with wild animals on an island.
The movie is billed as an American animated science fiction survival film based on the book series of the same name by Peter Brown, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures.
The film was written and directed by Chris Sanders, produced by Jeff Hermann, and executive-produced by Sanders’s longtime collaborative partner Dean DeBlois.
It stars the voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry, and Ving Rhames.
Clocking in at 102 minutes long, the film is rated PG for action/peril and thematic elements.
In a futuristic Earth, six Universal Dynamics ROZZUM all-purpose utilitarian robots are lost from a cargo ship during a typhoon, and wash up on an island that has no human life.
Only one of the robots survives the crash, Unit 7134 (Nyong’o) is accidentally activated by a family of otters.
Calling herself “Roz” for short, she attempts to advertise her services, but only succeeds in terrifying the animals and injuring herself.
Roz activates a learning safe mode that translates the animals’ language over several days, but still cannot find anyone who requires her help.
She decides to signal her manufacturers to retrieve her, but accidentally crushes a goose nest after falling off a cliff, leaving only a single egg.
After Roz defends the egg from a hungry fox, the egg hatches, and the newborn gosling imprints itself onto her and breaks her communication transponder.
A mother opossum named Pinktail (O’Hara) drives Roz to accept the task of raising the gosling with three primary requirements – feeding it, teaching it to swim, and ensuring it can fly before the annual winter migration.
Roz recruits Fink the fox (Pascal) to help with finding food and constructing a shelter; as the three begin cohabitating, Roz names the gosling Brightbill (Connor).
Once Brightbill has grown, Roz and Fink try teaching him how to swim.
He meets the rest of the island’s geese, who belittle him for his smaller size, awkwardness, and his relationship with the “monster” that killed his original family.
Brightbill scorns Roz and leaves, angry at having the truth kept from him which prompts her to return to the cargo ship’s crash site to learn more about her intended purpose and replace her transponder.
Elder goose Longneck (Nighy) encourages Roz not to give up on Brightbill, and she recruits the falcon Thunderbolt (Rhames) to help with flying lessons and endurance training.
Somewhere along the way while Roz is trying to complete her final task for Brightbill, she develops more friendships with the animals on the island and starts to recognize how she grows past her programming, too.
However, I’m not going to spoil the ending of the film for you – you’ll just have to watch it!
I fully endorse this film for children and adults of all ages and can tell you that I’m going to try to drag my mom to see it with me as soon as possible.
