In a time when so many films are adding to the fear and paranoia about where technology is taking us, The Wild Robot dares to examine the unlikely connective tissue between tech and nature, to question what it means to be alive, sentient, and linked to all living entities.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, and Lilo & Stitch) takes a wildly popular book (by Peter Brown) with only a small number of illustrations and adapts it into something nearly perfect by giving us something other than an empty animated adventure. The Wild Robot is a visually stunning work that also doubles as a positive, powerful metaphor about found families and adoption. It’s a story with soul, about soul, and about creating a soul.
The film follows a task-oriented helper robot named ROZZUM Unit 7134 (or “Roz,” voiced by the great Lupita Nyong’o) who is being delivered to its owner when it becomes stranded on an uninhabited island and must learn to understand and adapt to these somewhat dangerous surroundings. Part of that process involves building relationships with the local animals, even learning each of their languages so it (and we) can understand everybody. Roz is looking for a task and after accidentally destroying an entire nest of goose eggs and their mother goose, it takes it upon itself to help raise a newly hatched, orphaned gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor). A dangerously predatory fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) eventually befriends the robot and gives it its task to teach the gosling to swim, fly, and other things geese do to survive. Initially, the other animals see Roz as a monster, but after seeing it take care of Brightbill, they start to incorporate the two into their society and help in the raising process.
Catherine O’Hara co-stars as the motherly opossum Pinktail, who is perhaps Roz’s greatest ally (she has many children of her own and does her best to show them how to play dead when necessary). Also on hand are Bill Nighy’s goose Longneck, who encourages Brightbill’s training so that he’ll be ready in time for the great migration in a few months. Matt Berry, Mark Hamill, and Ving Rhames provide supporting voices, and Stephanie Hsu shows up later in the film as Vontra, a robot whose path crosses Roz’s life on the island in disruptive ways, Each performer adds so much humor and humanity to their roles, even the ones playing robots.
I can’t emphasize enough how good this film looks. Just last week, I sang the praises of the animated Transformers One, and a few months back, I gushed about Inside Out 2. But The Wild Robot looks better than both, and like Inside Out 2, there’s a very good chance you’ll cry openly at some point during the movie. In my mind, those two films are a toss up for best animated works of the year.
But more than that, both are among the finest movies of the year, period. This one has subversive, dark humor, while also being completely accessible to younger viewers. But like something akin to The Iron Giant, The Wild Robot features a subtext that is aimed right at the hearts and minds of adults, and it’s this layered approach to storytelling that impressed me so much. Roz is constantly reminded that it shouldn’t feel anything, and it’s the robot’s insistence that it should and does that gives this story such an uplifting glow. Just see it.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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