This heartwarming epic from the creators of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise is the best animated film of the year. 8.6/10
Full Disclosure: I had sky-high expectations going in to this one. The How to Train Your Dragon trilogy are some of my favorite non-Disney animated features of all time. Creators Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois had a lot to live up to. Plus, the trailer alone left a lump in my throat.

Review

Longtime readers will know that it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me choked up in a movie theater. In the real world, I’m a massive cynic that tends to lean to the side of nihilism more often than not. The cinema is my escape, and there’s no better form of escapism than a good animated feature. The Wild Robot is a great animated feature.

DreamWorks Animation has consistently put out A-tier films since Shrek in 2001. They’ve had their ups (Kung-Fu Panda) and downs (Shark Tale), but they’ve been pretty consistent quality-wise for over two decades. They’ve never been quite as good as Disney/Pixar, but they’ve always been better than Illumination. DreamWorks’ apex, however, came with 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon and its two sequels. The creative team behind that near-perfect trilogy is back for this adaptation of the book series by author Peter Brown. Expectations were high, and they delivered. While I still believe that the third HtTYD is the best DreamWorks Animation film to date, The Wild Robot is pretty high up there.

*The Wild Robot* has a sense of wonder and discovery that will dazzle the whole family.

The Wild Robot boasts a star-studded voice cast that includes Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, and Catherine O’Hara. Nyong’o stars as Unit 7134, an all-purpose ROZZUM robot. It’s basically the end-state evolution of an Alexa, whose sole purpose is to complete tasks that humans don’t feel like doing. Unit 7134 crash lands on an island inhabited only by animals. (By the way, this all takes place on futuristic Earth, for purposes of clarity.) The local wildlife activate the robot, but with no humans to serve, the robot is lost and without purpose. Luckily, Unit 7134 has the programming to learn any language, including foxes, squirrels, etc. She soon learns that “ROZZUM Unit 7134” is a stupid name, so she goes by Roz for short.

This film is full of heartwarming moments that will cut you to the core.

Roz begins to explore her new surroundings, seeking a task to complete so that she can feel a sense of purpose. She tries to communicate with the animals on the island, but they are unsurprisingly wary of this metallic stranger. The mismatch of robot and wild animals leads to many antics. Some hilariously funny, some devastatingly sad. I wouldn’t recommend this film for kids younger than seven.

Like so many stories before it, the primary message of the film is “what does it mean to be human?” Yes, it’s been done before, but that doesn’t mean this film is unoriginal or not worth making. From Blade Runner to The Iron Giant, this theme is worth exploring, and it becomes more relevant with each passing year as technology advances.

Spoilers Ahead

Roz and her fox friend Fink, played by Pedro Pascal.

During her explorations, Roz accidentally kills an entire family of geese. It’s a surprisingly dark moment for a kid’s movie, especially since it takes place so early in the film. One unhatched egg remains, and something in Roz’s programming tells her that she should look after it.

A hungry fox looking for an easy meal steals the egg and makes off with it, but Roz is able to retrieve it. When the gosling hatches, Roz, the fox (named Fink), and the runty goose (named Brightbill) become the unlikeliest family unit imaginable. Roz finally has her task: raise Brightbill to integrate him into the local goose population and teach him to fly so he can migrate south for the winter. Being a runt, and being raised by a fox and a robot, poor Brightbill has all the odds stacked against him.

As if Roz didn’t have enough challenges, the company that made her is out to relieve their lost merchandise. (The amount of resources the company spends on recovering one lost robot is astronomical, but that’s by the bye.)

Roz and Fink try their best to teach Brightbill the ways of the goose, but they can’t duplicate being raised by his own kind. Sadly, Brightbill is rejected by the local flock for being a runt and a freak.

Roz is nothing if not determined. When a ROZZUM unit acquires a task, it will stop at nothing to complete it, even if it means their own destruction. Now, veteran movie-watchers will assume that the story concludes with Roz helping Brightbill fly, followed by a heart-wrenching goodbye that will leave the audience in tears. That does happen, but that’s only the halfway point of the movie.

Roz won’t stop until she becomes the savior of the island and everyone’s bestie.

Once Roz and Brightbill part ways, Roz is ready to return to the company that created her. Only then does she realize that she doesn’t want to leave. Fink guilt trips her into staying… And Winter is coming. (Sorry, had to do it).

Winter is incredibly harsh, and nearly all of the animals are in danger of freezing to death. Fink, now with a conscience, helps Roz build a shelter and gather the surviving wildlife. Instinct and the food chain are hard to overcome though, so they all start attacking each other. Roz gives a heartfelt speech, and in true kids’ movie fashion, they all agree to let bygones be bygones until winter passes.

Spring arrives, and with it, Brightbill. The unconventional family are reunited, just in time for the nefarious corporation to come in search of their lost product. Roz survives an attempt at a memory reboot because, ya know, love. Still, Roz elects to return to the corporation to help her fellow ROZZUM units become self-aware. Look out, SKYNET! It’s a bittersweet ending that is an ending, but definitely leaves it open-ended for a sequel.

This film is funny, heartfelt, and visually stunning. It’s also jarringly violent and dark in places. Roz inadvertently harms or kills several animals in her quest to find a purpose. Roz and Fink also fail to save a few animals from the winter cold. Realistic? Yup. Kid-friendly? Meh.

My main gripe, and the thing that keeps this from being a 9 or above, is that there’s actually too much dialogue. Especially at the beginning. The trailers lead one to believe that the film would have minimal dialogue and rely on the visual storytelling medium to evoke deep emotions. Roz learning the languages of every animal would be an eventual necessity to hold a young audience’s attention, but it happened too quickly at the expense of a sense of wonder.

The “found family” aspect of the story is really the heart of *The Wild Robot*.

5 Quick Hits

On the surface, the plot may seem like a knockoff of WALL-E, but it’s not. While there are certainly similarities, no one can accuse the makers of this film of aping that much from the Pixar classic.
Catherine O’Hara is on one hell of a run lately! She’s in everything, and good for her!
The Bill Nighy old goose character kind of comes out of nowhere and his noble sacrifice doesn’t quite land because of this.
The hand-painted aesthetic is reminiscent of Disney classics of old, and is a welcome changeup from the overtly computer animated overload we’ve been fed as of late.
At “only” $78 million, this is a comparatively low-budget film. For comparison, this year’s Inside Out 2 cost a whopping $200 million. The Wild Robot definitely got more bang for its buck.