Movie Review: The Wild Robot

4 stars out of 5

I was not planning on seeing The Wild Robot. I was set on Joker II. (I like watching Joaquin Phoenix go nuts.) But a little last-minute research turned up that the new Joker was not particularly good and also, a musical. WTF? Much like the Mean Girls reboot, Joker II was not marketed as a musical because modern audiences do not like musicals. OK, fair enough, but how far back were these movies greenlit (and let’s include In the Heights and the outstanding Spielberg West Side Story) so that film execs actually thought that crowds would flock to musicals??

I bought a ticket for The Wild Robot. That is, after googling “Is Wild Robot entertaining for adults,” and getting a positive enough response. This is a very lovingly animated film (except for a couple of blurry animals) and in some regards, an Iron Giant for a new generation. Roz the robot (warmly voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) is meant for some upper middle-class family (perhaps the Jetsons?) but the shipment crash-lands on an uninhabited island with incredibly amazing biodiversity. Roz is programmed to help and to complete tasks. Long-story short, she ends up needing to raise Brightbill, a gosling. (Golden-goose opportunity BLOWN — honk honk — to cast Ryan Gosling as a voice actor.)

Pedro Pascal is the requisite animated-movie sassy buddy, a fox named Fink. I found his voice grating at first but it grew on me as the character became more reliable. I enjoyed hearing Matt Berry as a compulsive beaver. Catherine O’Hara has some nice bits as a possum mama with a rotating litter. Mark Hamill doesn’t get much to do as a bear, but I’m glad he’s in this. Ving Rhames has the meats as an owl. Bill Nighy classes things up as a goose elder.

After the clever fish-out-of-water opening scenes, I started to think “uggh, this is a kids’ movie after all” — it even stops dead in its tracks for the requisite pop song. But as the drama ramps up, there’s actually some action, and I found myself more invested in the story. Meanwhile, nice messages about the importance of friendship and that family is where you find it seep in as well.

Here’s the crazy thing: This is a movie for adults — it’s for moms. The movie practically panders (ganders? pandas?) to moms. But it’s OK, because moms give and give and give and where is the appreciation, they’re like the freaking Giving Tree with all the giving till they’re so worn down and there’s no spa day when you’re a robot and moms deserve love damnit, is that so wrong? So bring Mom and Grandma and your knocked-up sister to a screening — oh, don’t forget to bring the kids too — was this DreamWorks’ sinister demographic plan all along? — and put a knowing smile on your mom’s face.