I should not have let myself be overhyped for "The Wild Robot," the new Dreamworks animated film directed by Chris Sanders, based on a book by Peter Brown. My expectations were entirely too big going into a small, charming film about a lost helper robot. Being a fan of other animated robots like the heroes of "The Iron Giant" and "Astro Boy," I was expecting something big and bombastic with weighty existential themes. Instead, I got a much sweeter, smaller scale story about parenthood and community-building, with a heroine like no other.
The robot, eventually named Roz (Lupita Nyong'o), finds herself on a remote island populated by wild animals. The animals initially want nothing to do with this "monster," but Roz learns to communicate with them, and finds a creature in need of her help - a tiny gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor). Even though Roz has all kinds of special skills and gadgetry, she is not a good surrogate mother at first, and needs lots of advice from characters like the opossum mom Pinktail (Catherine O'Hara), surly beaver Paddle (Matt Berry), and even the local troublemaking fox, Fink (Pedro Pascal).
Written and directed by Chris Sanders, whose previous credits include "Lilo and Stitch" and "How to Train Your Dragon," "The Wild Robot" is once again about cross-species found family relationships. However, the focus here is on Roz experiencing all the joys and tumult of motherhood. We also get plenty of Brightbill's POV as he gets older and prepares for his first migration, but watching Roz tackle parenting challenge after parenting challenge had me mentally drawing connections to "Bluey" rather than other cinematic portrayals of robots learning to be human, like "A.I." or "Bicentennial Man." Roz has her foundational programming giving her traits like protectiveness and curiosity, but she has to learn a lot on the job. And when she starts developing things like emotional connections and rebelliousness, they feel earned. Even her gender expression feels like an outgrowth of her chosen caregiver role rather than the other way around.
I like that "The Wild Robot" is kept small in scope, telling a story about one little community of animals in terms that even very young children can understand. There are hints of larger worldbuilding, but the lives of the barely-glimpsed humans who built Roz are kept offscreen. Instead, we spend our time in nature, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, watching gorgeously animated flocks of geese, river otters at play, and the seasons changing in unusually painterly CGI. The animals are initially a contentious lot, not inclined to be friendly, and a bit more cynical than the usual storybook critters. Pinktail's brood of children are the source of some especially morbid humor (though still kid-appropriate). Death is a fact of life in the wild, and treated matter-of-factly.
The movie has all the earmarks of an enduring classic. It's heartwarming, accessible, beautifully made, and feels like someone's passion project. However, I want to caution that it is still very much a film following the template of a mainstream animated entertainment for children. There's a much better, hour-long version of "The Wild Robot" somewhere in here that doesn't feel the need to orchestrate a big action sequence in the third act and spell out its messages quite so pointedly. I tried to ignore it when somebody is maneuvered into the exact wrong place at the wrong time thinking the wrong thing, so we can have a frantic chase scene. There's also a totally unnecessary villain and a few characters who are probably only there because they were in the book.
And that's all perfectly forgivable, but I've been watching animated films for long enough that I know this sort of desperate effort to keep the audience's attention isn't necessary. "The Wild Robot" gets the important things right - its relationships, its depth of feeling, and its commitment to its themes - and it's the best movie I've seen out of Dreamworks Animation in over a decade. However, deep down I know it could be better. It's in the same category as a movie like PIXAR's "Up," which has a few absolutely magical scenes, but is mostly just a pleasant adventure movie. "The Wild Robot," similarly, has its moments of transcendence, and is already attracting adoring fans, but I can't quite put it up there with the animation greats.
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