The Wild Robot
When ROZZUM unit 7134 (voice of Lupita Nyong’o, "A Quiet Place: Day One") is marooned on a deserted island, the technological innovation will learn about natural life by observing the animal kingdom and find her mission when she is imprinted by a gosling hatchling. Roz will resist returning to her own kind after becoming “The Wild Robot.”
Laura's Review: A-
Through the eyes of a programmed robot that must overwrite her own protocols in order to fulfill her purpose, an open mind if you will, we are taught the value of kindness and cooperation in group survival, a fitting message for a divided America. Adapted from Peter Brown’s book by “Lilo & Stitch” writer/director Chris Sanders, this beautiful and moving animation is near perfection.
A mechanical contraption consisting of round white orbs attached by springy limbs crawls out of a battered crate and announces her name to some puzzled otters floating by the shore before she’s swept up in a crashing wave. She’ll watch a crab climb sideways up the cliff and adapt to avoid the next surge. Roz is seeking a customer to give her a task, but each creature she encounters finds her horrifying, her attempts to assist causing that crab to be taken by a gull and resulting in the destruction of Paddler (voice of Matt Berry) the beaver’s dam.
She’s bucked by running deer, landing in a tree, accidentally killing a nesting bird. Distraught, she’ll attempt to be recalled via her transmitter, but when her x-ray vision identifies an unborn hatchling within an intact egg, she suspends the signal. That egg also draws the attention of Fink (voice of Pedro Pascal), a fox who, when unsuccessful stealing it, uses his wiles to manipulate her. Roz panics when the egg begins to crack, desperately trying to keep it together, but when the adorable, wide-eyed gosling pops out, Roz is thrilled, immediately giving it a task completion survey and uncomprehending when it continues to follow her. Pinktail (voice of Catherine O'Hara), an opossum overloaded with her own offspring, informs the puzzled bot that the hatchling believes it to be its mother and that in order for it to survive, it must be fed, taught to swim and fly.
Fink, also an outcast on this island, gives up trying to eat the gosling and teams up with Roz, Pascal’s foxy vocal performance revealing the creature’s loneliness. When Roz tries to name the chick ‘0001,’ Fink nixes the digital reference and she eventually comes up with Brightbill (voices of Boone Storm, Kit Connor), but the young bird completes this trio of outcasts – considered a runt, it is mocked by others of its kind. Always solving problems, Roz enlists a hawk (voice of Ving Rhames) for flying lessons and Longneck (voice of Bill Nighy), the geese migration leader, takes note of all her efforts. An emotional farewell leaves words unsaid, but Roz and Fink will be faced with a monstrous winter storm that threatens every creature on the island while Brightbill faces his own challenges.
The film’s animation style is a diverse mix. Roz evolves from a shiny appliance into a moss covered ‘wild robot,’ easily distinguishable from the Universal Dynamics predator bots led by Vontra (voice of Stephanie Hsu) who comes to retrieve this rebellious anomaly. Woodland creatures appear a cross between CGI and painting, some sequences looking like watercolor, while background scenery is rendered realistically, the magical imagery held aloft by Kris Bowers’ (“Green Book”) orchestral score. The vocal cast, which also includes Mark Hamill as a threatening bear, bring their characters to life without calling attention to their celebrity.
“The Wild Robot” is a must see, a fantastical celebration of our better angels, an unforgettable tale of love and self-sacrifice.
Universal Pictures releases "The Wild Robot" in theaters on 9/27/24.
