Rent The Wild Robot (2024)

Beautiful story for children... and all that that implies - The Wild Robot review by YL

I recently missed this in the cinema and with everyone calling it a modern masterpiece I couldn't wait to see it on a big OLED screen.

No question the art style, the direction is amazing. Pixar and Disney have been recently really dropping the ball with sticking to the safe glossy plastic art style going on decades, and I have very much transitioned into preferring experimental art style the likes of spiderverse/TMNT, and this oil brush style is something to behold.

Having said that the story is rather....simple and predictable. It it derived from a children's book series from what I understand and it never reaches the heights of melancholy contemplativeness or mind blowing world building or great and memorable character interactions. In fact character motivations and dialogue are often painfully spelt out and reinforced awkwardly again and again, and I would have even preferred if there was no dialogue whatsoever.

It does feel like somewhat of a mash of Wall-E/Iron Giant/Fly away home/Bambi/Last Bastion, that never comes into focus beyond surface level concepts.

What Happens after ROZ leaves the island will be an adult horror film one would imagine... - The Wild Robot review by The REAL Film Cricket

The Wild Robot is based on a book by Peter Brown, which is very popular and this DreamWorks adaptation proved to be very popular too. DreamWorks output is mainly for children but made in such a subtle and clever way adults can equally enjoy the story. To my mind, The Wild Robot is definitely slanted to younger children at the expense of adults and thus for me I did not find it as engaging.

I am not saying this is a badly made film or a boring story but as it unfolded in front of me on the screen the niggling thought inside my head was ‘this is very simple and childish’.

The message is a positive and important one. We must all work together for the better of everyone, although the current world in 2025 would very much say no one is listening or cares about this, which of course will colour your view.

The voice acting and therefore characterisation of the animal characters is very good and generally funny, Lupita Nyong’o, and Pedro Pascal, definitely lead the cast but they are ably supported by Kit Connor, Catherine O’Hara and every reliable Bill Nighy. So, all good. The animation is lovely and at times beautiful, the animals are recognisable as animals but have human characteristics, which is always a tough task for animators, the standard is high here.

What is a bit odd is how the story unfolds. At the start the animals behave like animals, they eat each other, steal and generally compete to survive. As ROZ influences them, changes them, they cooperate and help each other, particularly in the harsh island winter. The first thing that came into my mind at the end of the story, and I can’t be the only one, is what do they eat and do later on? Make factories to make vegetarian food for everyone? It is just ignored for cuddly loveliness at the end, but in the beginning, you saw the same characters killing and eating other animals. Hmmmm? Have I overthought it, perhaps? But you are doing a disservice to children if you think a few of them cannot latch onto that.

Further to this the ending for ROZ made one word pop up in my mind – ‘What?!’ Open-ended I suppose but confusing considering what was implied that was going to happen to the robot when they first came to remove it from the island.

So all in all The Wild Robot is a well-made animation, with some fun and emotional moments but the story seems to be purely made to tug at the heartstrings and give a lovely positive message with little to no thought behind that. It is definitely for young children.

Shame, I found it disappointing just because of that.