The Wild Robot is a special movie, a gift, bringing in themes of family, bullying, and the specialness of being different which makes the animated film for everyone! The story is based on the illustrated book series by Peter Brown with his trilogy, The Wild Robot (2016), The Wild Robot Escapes (2018), and The Wild Robot Protects (2023). The movie is written and directed by Chris Sanders. He previously co-wrote and co-directed The Croods (2013). We move through the angry storm clouds as lightning ripples from it and rain falls! It suddenly moves to a shore after the storm with blocks of beach stone. This landscape is seen in a wide, curved lens which made it perfect for theaters! Otters begins to skitter as the lens retracts, the eye of an unmoving robot turned on her side!, this is Rozzum-134 named by Brown after Rossum’s Universal Robots (1920), the play by Karel Čapek that first used the name “robot.”
The otters move over to a shattered container that contains the robot. The nose of one otter accidentally pushes the button that activates the robot. It sends the otters plunging into the sea water as it spins! The robot has a distorted voice that resolves to Lupita N`yongo’s friendly voice! She gives her greeting to the otters, “Hello, bon jour, guten tag, jambo, hola!” The fourth greeting is Swahili, nice! N`yongo was also in A Quiet Place: Day One (2024). She had voiced Asha in a 2023 episode of the Big Mouth cartoon series. There are celebrity actors voicing parts over voice actors, but I can’t see anyone else besides N `yongo with Roz’s enthusiasm, compassion, and humor. The design of the film’s Roz has a rounded head, telescoping limbs, and a round body. Versitile and friendly. The original Chris Brown drawings had the typical, blocky robot.
She ends with “a Rozzum always completes it’s task just ask.” A wave spins Roz away and tosses her to some cliff rocks. Some crabs crawl away. We see with Roz Vision, the threat of the coming wave! Her warm blue lights that ring around her head and body are replaced by red warning lights! The blue light reminds me of the living alien spaceships like toys in batteries not included (1987). Roz begins to climb the cliff, the wave is about to roll in, and then Roz sees a blue crab slowly work its way up sideways. She duplicates its moves and escapes the deadly wave. I really like the technological robot learning from an animal which is one of the themes of the film. Roz lifts up the crab, we see customer in Roz vision, but then a seagull snatches it away! She finds herself facing the lush pastel greens of the forest.
The designs of the movie has a soft, watercolor feel that is beautiful, the book has blocky artwork like paper cut-outs. Beautiful CGi artwork to make it look like paint. Roz joyfully enters the forest as we see the top of pine trees and some birds. Roz happily gives her introduction to customers, the animals watch as she awkwardly makes her way through the trees, she chases a badger saying she can help. A squirrel slips into its tree and Roz sees a diagram of a home and knocks on the tree. She gets a nut thrown at her, but takes the squirrel’s picture to give it a sticker! The sticker has the manufacturer, Universal Dynamics, but the squirrel tears it up. A beaver swims in a stream to fetch a twig, Roz sees him, and runs to help. She tosses his collection of wood and gets a tail slap of water in return!
Paddler becomes important later. The names of the animals is what makes Brown’s book enduring and you will get more of the animals reading the novel. Another sticker floats away and one is on a turtle. No customers for Roz and they all reject her. Loneliness and being ignored is another theme. A butterfly gets her attention and Roz follows it to a rock wall exposed by butterflies fluttering away, a beautiful image! She picks up a skunk, and realizes that she can’t understand its chirps. Roz gets a burst of the skunk’s musk in return. She expels the musk and then pops out her chip to activate her learning mode. Roz folds into a sitting position and the languages of all of the animals is seen in bubbles around her. Time passes in a montage as days pass and slowly words are understood. This lasts until the “Translation Complete” range is met. This is a clever way for her to speak animal languages.
Roz rises now, covered in leaves that fall away, the animals regard her in fear and wariness. Paddler, voiced by Matt Berry, says, “Look!, that’s the thing that destroyed my dam!” Funny. Berry is known as Laszlo Cravensworth in What We Do in the Shadows. He voices Shlub in the Krapoplis animated show. Paddler is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in the book. The animals are all gathered around Roz as she makes her presentation with multi-colored lights streaming out of her two projectors from her shoulders. Then, she is rammed by a moose! This has Roz splattered on the forest floor. She rises up with arms out like Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, nice touch! The animals panic at the monster and scatter. Alone, she wonders who ordered her. Then, a storm starts to drop rain and we find Roz at the top of a cliff looking around the island.
Roz registers, “Delivery unsuccessful. Return to factory” which we see in Roz Vision. Her return transmitter pops from her head and begins lighting up. Then a lighting bolt hits her and she falls. Sad in a way, but also funny! Roz falls in a heap under the trees. She is shut down until there are warnings that her panels are opening! Her parts have been scavenged by raccoons! Roz has to pull back her wires and her left hand crawls back to her body with her missing eye! More raccoons are crawling inside her so Roz spins until they slam into trees. She activates her transmitter, but the light draws the raccoons! They swarm after Roz as she climbs a tree. A raccoon plucks out the transmitter and the other raccoons are tossed into the sea next to the otters. The raccoon scampers into a cave where there is a growl, he runs away, and Roz reaches in the cave to get the transmitter.
It is a bear that roars and slashes her chest! When he is more calm, Thorn speaks, and is voiced by Mark Hamill. The actor is not only known for Corvette Summer (1978), but voiced Granduncle in The Boy and The Heron (2023). The bear's roar would actually be translated. In the book, Thorn is the son of Mother Bear, and he makes trouble with his sister, Nettle. It is a harrowing chase through the forest with Roz using her eyes like searchlights. Roz falls, crashing down a cliffside, and slams into an edge! Her systems are damaged so she can’t activate the transmitter. Then, she notices a feather, Roz stands up, and then sees a wing of the goose she accidentally crushed. This along with some of the action may be intense for young ones. Roz uncovers an eggshell and with a thermal scan finds inside a gosling! There is almost emotion in the data scrolling across Roz’s eyes.
In the morning when Roz picks up the egg, looks to her transmitter, and then finds the egg is gone in her hand! A fox has taken the egg and is able to hide in a log. A buzzsaw slices through it and Roz has him by the tail, until the fox, Fink (Pedro Pascal), drops it! Pascal starred as General Acacius in Gladiator II (2024). He voiced Claude in a 2023 episode of HouseBroken. Fink is self absorbed in a funny way, but slowly finds himself helping Roz and the other animals. He was a minor character in the book. Fink manages to snatch away the egg and Roz again plunges off a cliff into the fog. Then Roz’s hand has telescoped from her fall to grab a fallen log. She leaps up and corners Fink to the edge of the log until he drops the egg. Then, we hear what the fox says, but he again steals the egg until he is finally stopped! Roz helps Fink and he angrily heads out.
The egg begins to hatch and out comes the baby gosling (Boone Storm), not named Ryan, but he sees Roz surrounded by golden light. Closeups of Roz’s face and the lil’ gosling, Brightbill. He is named in the book by the leader of the geese, Loudwing (Bill Nighy). Also, in 2024, Nighy was in the bio drama, Joy, and voiced Conrad in the animated movie, Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue. He presses his head against Roz, she has pink lighting, and golden glow. She plucks Brightbill down and her greeting surprises him with the photo and sticker. Roz asks him about his customer satisfaction, takes it as a 10, and then tries to activate her transmitter. Brightbill peeps and follows Roz. She gives him a pamphlet on Florida. This is interesting because there is no specific setting for the book and we see that this is a future for the United States. The gosling snuggles up to Roz and shatters her transmitter.
A mother oppossum, Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara) is walking along with her back covered by her children! O’Hara starred in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) and also in the Pixar film, Elemental (2023). Roz tries to place the gosling on Pinktail’s back, but the other oppossums fall away from him. She suddenly appears so the opposums play dead, funny! Pinktail explains that the gosling imprinted on her, Roz is her mother even though she says she doesn’t have the programming, the mother opposum says no one has the programming. It is such a powerful theme about raising a child. Pinktail says it is her task to raise the gosling which instantly returns Roz to service robot mode. She explains that the gosling has to eat, swim, and fly before the winter. This does happen in the book, but putting it as three tasks sets a good sequence for the movie.
Roz’s attempts to help the gosling is awkward at best and this gets the help of Fink, who says he’s the “local goose expert.” He uses Roz to find food, her power core is damaged, andhe has Roz build a safe place, the Nest which was made by Mr. Beaver in the book. Brightbill gets older, then voiced by Kit Connor, he is too small for a goose, and begins to speak like his mother. The Wild Robot is about a robot mother and her goose son, but is a very human story about family, bullying, and finding your wings, beautifully animated, and a great voice cast with Lupita N`yongo, Pedro Pascal, and many others!
Five+ Transmitters out of Five!
#TheWildRobot, #ChrisSanders, #LupitaNyongo, #PedroPascal, #KitConnor, #PedroPascal, #CatherineOHara, #BillNighy, #VingRhames, #MattBerry, #MarkHamill, #RandyThom, #StephanieHsu
No comments:
Post a Comment