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The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot




Rated PG-13 - for action/peril and thematic elements.
Director: Chris Sanders
Starring: voices of Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, Catherine O'Hara, Mark Hamill
Running Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Theatrical Release Date: September 27, 2024

READER RATING:   


Plot Summary

After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose. (from IMDB)


Film Review

Pixar has often been lauded for offering some of the most incredible (no pun intended) and impactful animated films to ever hit the silver screen. But through the years, DreamWorks Animation has risen through the ranks, often producing some titles that rival what Pixar has released. While there have most certainly been misses (Shark Tale and Ruby Gillman quickly come to mind), it's hard to count out movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and even Shrek (or its superior sequel, Shrek 2). So when a movie like The Wild Robot comes around, and hearing that it's directed by Chris Sanders, who gave us How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch, animated movie fans need to take notice.

The Wild Robot
The Wild Robot revolves around a helper robot named Roz that finds itself waking up alone on a remote island. As it tries to figure out how to help the animals around it, it ends up finding the need to care for and raise an orphaned gosling. Through the highs and lows of newfound parenthood, Roz discovers what it means to be a mother, in order to complete her task, all the while learning how to fit in as an outsider in the wild. It has the classic fish-out-of-water elements you'd expect from a story like this one, but it's brimming with heart, emotion, and surprises all along the way.

While watching The Wild Robot, moments and aspects of other films came to mind several times, but the movie as a whole has such an earnest spirit that it seems criminal to not let it stand on its own, apart from those other movies. Lupita Nyong'o gives a beautiful voice performance as the titular robot, Roz, and it's amazing how much - and how quickly - we grow to love her. The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal is almost unrecognizable as a mischievous yet lovable fox named Fink who ends up helping Roz on her journey. And that little gosling is just too cute. When he grows up a bit, Kit Connor delivers a wonderful performance as well.

The Wild Robot
My family and I had the pleasure of seeing the movie early, and we ended up taking the opportunity to see it a second time while we could. I enjoyed it even more on the second viewing. It's one of those movies where you're not exactly sure what to expect going in, or you have a vague idea what to expect, and the end result ends up being quite different. So, going into it a second time knowing how the story plays out and what to expect, I found the emotional elements of the story hitting me stronger the second time around. As a parent, it's easy to relate to what Roz experiences in trying to raise the gosling -- the highs and lows, the fears and triumphs -- and The Wild Robot handles it with a fair mix of humor and emotion, just like parenthood really brings. After Roz learns all of the languages of the animals native to the island, we hear them all speaking English so we can understand them, too, and this is when the other animal characters start taking shape. Fink is a fox who doesn't have any friends on the island, and really starts hanging around Roz because he'd love to eat the gosling as a snack. But through the journey of these characters, Fink finds a true, and unlikely, bond with the robot -- and it's in that kind of special friendship, amidst a world where we can tend to feel disconnected, that we can relate to how Fink feels. And while Roz is treated as the scary metal monster that you'd expect her to be seen as by a land filled with woodland creatures, her poor treatment doesn't have quite as much weight knowing she has no feelings. But Roz is the kind of robot that defies her own programming, taking on more humanistic characteristics as the story progresses. The story has some surprises as it moves along, for sure, and it can keep the viewer on the edge of their seat, wondering what might happen to these characters next.

One story theme we found surprising was a cavalier handling of the topic of death. While some of it comes from the way Fink handles his prey, a lot of it is treated with a great deal of lightheartedness by a group of possums - particularly a mother and her babies. But even when she thinks one of them dies suddenly at the hand of a predator off screen, she's shockingly matter-of-fact about it, not seeming to care. And when the baby turns up alive moments later, she's almost disappointed. On the one hand, the wild - with the circle of life and food chain as it is - is a seriously rough place, and death is just part of the norm. Still, if your kids are sensitive to the idea of death (as I know some children can be), you'll want to either keep that in mind ahead of time, or be prepared for some hearty conversation afterwards.

The Wild Robot
With that said, the movie is very much a PG-rated affair. Language is limited to mostly two uses of "sucks," but there's also a moment where an animal calls foul on something another animal says and exclaims "male bovine excrement!" which is merely a roundabout way to imply "bullsh..." (male bovine= bull. Excrement=....) It's minor, I admit, but it still surprised me to hear it (and it definitely went over my 13-year-old's head). The animal-on-animal violence can be surprising, if not a little jarring, too. One shocking and humorous moment shows Roz holding a bird that is then attacked by another animal that is then attacked by another animal, and so on. At one point, the dismembered head of the bird briefly lands in Roz's fingers before she drops it out of sight. Another scene has Fink grabbing a live crab, shoving it into a boiling puddle of water to kill it, and then casually ripping its arms/claws off to eat it. (Again, shocking in a humourous way.) There's also a sad moment where Roz finds a dead bird (a different one), and while we don't see the carcass, she lifts up the animal's wing (the rest of the body remains unseen) and drops it, to show that it has no life to it. She also finds some broken egg shells from ones that had been crushed as well. There is other violence in the film, but some of it is slapstick and some of it is action-based, but none of it is particularly graphic in nature (albeit, sometimes it is a little on the intense side).

Beautifully animated, wonderfully acted, emotionally charged and just all-around an excellent animated film, The Wild Robot is one of the best films of the year, and one well worth experiencing on the biggest screen possible. We're all ready to check this one out on IMAX on release week.

- John DiBiase (reviewed: 9/11/24)

 

 

Parental Guide: Content Summary


. Sex/Nudity: None.
. Vulgarity/Language: 2 "sucks," 1 "male bovine excrement," 1 possible "G-d"
. Alcohol/Drugs: None.
. Blood/Gore: A bird eats a butterfly, then another animal attacks it and the bird's decapitated head lands in Roz's fingers for a moment; A baby possum throws up a little bit of brown liquid on its mother; When Roz heats water to boil clams to eat, Fink nonchalantly grabs a live crab walking by and shoves it into the boiling water. He then pulls off its claws/arms and eats them. We see him eating other parts of it a little later.
. Violence: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD - A deer kicks Roz with its back legs and she goes flying; A bird eats a butterfly, then another animal attacks it and the bird's decapitated head lands in Roz's fingers for a moment; A moose charges and knocks over Roz; Roz is struck by lightning and falls off a cliff. Raccoons then scavenge her parts. Her detatched hand comes to life and fights off the raccoons, and shocks one of them. When Roz realizes some of them are inside her chest, she spins her torso around really fast, tossing live racoons out of her chest. They chase Roz up a tree and as she climbs down, it causes the tree to bend toward the ground. A large group of raccoons are huddled on the tree, so when she steps off, they rocket into the air and land in the water near the edge of the island; A bear smacks Roz in the chest, scraping her metal, and then chases her. It plows through trees and she runs into one, then falls down a cliff side and lands on a cliff's edge; Roz finds a smashed bird's nest and briefly holds up a dead bird's wing (still attached to the bird, which is under debris). She then examines crushed eggshells too; A fox takes a gosling egg. Roz chases the fox and uses a frightening blad to cut through a log when the fox hides inside; Roz whacks her face on tree branches while running down a hill; The fox swallows the egg and she squeezes its neck to get it to pop out. The fox accidentally runs into a porcupine and is pierced by man quills. Roz uses another frightening blade on her hand that then changes to fine tweezers and pulls the quills out of the fox's face; A group of possums play dead; We hear an animal attack a possum off screen and it's implied that the baby possum died. A moment later the baby says it's still alive and okay; The bear chases Roz again; Fink drop-kicks the baby gosling into the water to try to "help" it learn to swim; Fink puts the gosling in his mouth and Roz pulls it out; When Roz heats water to boil clams to eat, Fink nonchalantly grabs a live crab walking by and shoves it into the boiling water. He then pulls off its claws/arms and eats them. We see him eating other parts of it a little later; Fink throws a rat at a bird in a tree. Roz throws a pine cone at Fink and knocks him down; Another pine cone is seen hitting a squirrel in a tree; Geese peck and shove the gosling under the water, bullying him. He's then chased in the water by a barracuda. Roz's detatched hand hits the fish to keep it away; Roz trips and face-plants on the ground; In a plant nursery, a group of robots chase and shoot at a flock of geese. One of the geese stays behind to distract the robots to let the others get away. (We later hear it never made it out.); With a large group of animals residing inside a hut together, many of them fight one another. We later see one of them spit out an animal who spits out another animal; We see a montage scene of Roz rescuing animals from a snow storm; Robots chase Roz and the animals rally together to fight back and protect her. Fink uses the gun of one of the fallen robots to shoot another robot; A group of robots self-destruct, causing a fire to rage in the forest; A robot is restrained for its memory to be wiped; Birds attack a large ship. One bird crashes through the windshield and ends up hurting its wing so it can't fly; While on a ship, a robot grabs a bird and drops out of it as the ship explodes. The robot turns into a ball and crashes in the water below. The robot and bird end up being fine.

 

Disclaimer: All reviews are based solely on the opinions of the reviewer. Most reviews are rated on how the reviewer enjoyed the film overall, not exclusively on content. However, if the content really affects the reviewer's opinion and experience of the film, it will definitely affect the reviewer's overall rating.

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This Friday, October 11, 2024
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