Directed & Screenplay by Chris Sanders
Based on The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Produced by Jeff Hermann
Starring
Lupita Nyong’o
Pedro Pascal
Kit Connor
Bill Nighy
Stephanie Hsu
Mark Hamill
Catherine O’Hara
Matt Berry
Ving Rhames
Cinematography Chris Stover
Edited by Mary Blee
Music by Kris Bowers
Production company DreamWorks Animation
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Running time 102 minutes
Country United States
The Wild Robot has some similarities to Flow: it’s about a group of animals facing hardships in a human-depopulated world, features mysterious whales in unexpected locales, and is getting stellar ratings from the critics and audiences.
But these are Dreamworks animals: they can talk and are basically humans with fur or feather coats. Oh, the personalities are linked to species’ traits: the bear growls a lot and is sullen, the fox is quick and witty, the possums like to play dead, and the Canada geese are, for the most part, assholes.
The locale is one specific to our world: the adventure takes place on what is unmistakably Vancouver Island. (Although it’s not our world—yet. One scene shows a couple of whales swimming unconcernedly over the roadway of the Golden Gate Bridge.) And the contacts with the man-made world show an indisputably futuristic tech, not the least of which is the central character, Roz (ROZZUM unit 7134). Roz, along with four other robots, is shipwrecked and washed ashore on Vancouver Island (which seems to be devoid of humans). She is accidentally activated by inquisitive wildlife, manages to terrify the local critters, and while pursuing/running from same, destroys a goose nest, killing the mother and all but one of her eggs. Roz takes the surviving egg and incubates it, resulting in a runt Canada goose gosling, Brightbill, who immediately imprints on her. While strugging to raise Brightbill, Roz slowly makes friends among the local fauna as they slowly accustom to her presence.
The story is pretty standard for Dreamworks, spotlighting the virtues of family, friendship, teamwork, perseverance, courage and patience. What makes the movie enjoyable for adults is the amazing art and animation. Humanizing Ros was quite a neat trick, done in stages and with restraint. They wanted an iconic robot like Robbie or R2D2, and they managed it. Roz’s face is immobile, and the eyes are essentially camera lenses, but they portray emotion with considerable depth and perception.
This is reportedly the last in-house animation of Dreamworks. They’ve compiled an amazing library over the years. The Wild Robot won’t be their seminal work, but it is a worthy coda.