DreamWorks is known prominently for the Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon franchises. The Shrek films have been received so well that they even spawned a spinoff series of the character Puss In Boots voiced by Antonio Banderas.  The last Puss In Boots installment, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish was widely celebrated by fans and critics alike. DreamWorks has another hit on their hands as The Wild Robot is about to be released in theaters. It’s very similar in style to Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.

Rozzum 7134, Roz for short, (Lupita Nyongo, 12 Years a Slave) is a robot who is stranded on an island in the great Northwest of Canada. Its protocols suggest that it needs a task to continue in the place that it is currently. Its homing beacon can let the company in charge of the robots track them down and retrieve them.  Inadvertently while falling through the woods of said island it smashes the neck of Gosling. Miraculously one egg is still intact. That is if a wiley fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) doesn’t get it first. Eventually the egg hatches and forms a bond with Roz. She prevents Fink from eating the baby bird they name Brightbill (Kit Conner) and becomes a bit of a dysfunctional family unit.

With any animated film, the animation itself is a key component in whether or not the movie is going to be successful or not. Based on a similar style as Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, 2.5-D animation, a stylized CGI animation is used to create wondrous backdrops of trees, ponds, cliffs, and many other of nature’s things. Also, many animals were brought to like as well as the main character Roz. This animation is breathtakingly gorgeous to behold. It’s the best animation I’ve seen in any animated film this year thus far. This is the frontrunner to win Best Animated Feature at next year’s Academy Awards that’s for sure.

Along with the cast members I’ve already mentioned there are a vast amount of voices that portray the animals in the film and robot organisms.  The animals are voiced brilliantly by Mark Hamell, Thorn the Grizzly Bear, Ving Rhames, Thunderbolt the Falcon, Kathrine O’Hara, Pinktail the Opossum, and Matt Berry, Paddler the Beaver just to name a few. These animal characters were cute and funny and brought a genuine story element to the movie. These were the best anamorphic animals I’ve seen in a film all year.

There were two specific scenes that moved me beyond belief and those were a sequence where the robot, Roz, had to take the young goose under its wing and teach him how to fly. This scene also involved the fox as well. The scene was so touching and wonderful it brought a tear to my eye. It was set to an original song by Merin Morris called “Kiss the Syly”. I loved this song and this beautiful scene so much. The second scene that was very impactful was a sequence where Roz had to rescue a bunch of animals from a winter blizzard and bring them to its shelter. This was such a funny and wacky scene. It added a comedic element to this story.

There are two things I took away from this film. The first is technology versus nature. We live in a society where we want the new-fangled device, whether it’s a fancy new car, home security system, refrigerator, or phone, but we forget there is beauty in the world in the form of trees, plants, and wildlife. These need a place to thrive or they are going to be gone. I understand wanting to make things easy and convenient, but we shouldn’t make that happen at the expense of the Planet we live on. There is a fragile ecosystem and if we’re not careful we could destroy that and ourselves in the process.

The second thing I learned from this movie is that we should try to understand that things are different and they can still work and live together in harmony. The planet is filled with different species, races of people, and religions. We need to understand that there is room for all of us if we just give each other the space we need. We can all thrive in the world if we are left alone to do our own thing and figure life out. The human and animal species have learned to adapt and keep moving forward. All need to just get along with each other.

The Wild Robot is a breathtakingly gorgeous animated film that combines multiple styles to create a photorealistic world. The anamorphic animals look great and the world the movie is set in is immaculate.  The voice-over work by the entire cast is great, but most especially by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyongo. The score is rousing and powerful, two songs sung by Merin Morris “Touch the Sky” and “Even When I’m Not” are exceptional. Dare I say Oscar-worthy. That’s the key phrase when I walked out of this movie that I was saying. How many Academy Award wins, not just nominations will it get? That’s the big question. Masterpiece was the other thing I was thinking about. That’s what Chris Sanders has on his hands with this film.

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen