- Starring
- Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor
- Director
- Chris Sanders
- Rating
- PG
- Genre
- Adventure, Animation, Sci-Fi
- Release date
- Sept 27, 2024
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Based on a book series of the same name, The Wild Robot takes place on an island in the distant future. On it, a shipwrecked robot takes on a task that will forever change her life and the lives of all those around her.
The Wild Robot Review
Despite what some might tell you, The Wild Robot is not the next Iron Giant or even Wall-E. However, it is a very competently filmed piece of animation that benefits from more than solid direction and some very nice vocal performances.
The story is somewhat messy, with an underdeveloped central narrative muddled by time-filling subplots. While each tangent is mildly entertaining in its own right, rather than enhancing the core story, they eat up time that would have been better spent developing the relationships between the main trio, thus magnifying the emotional impact of their story.
The needlessly truncated central plot also robs the talented voice actors of the width and breadth needed to express much dynamism. The result is a lot of competence with little room for excellence.
However, thanks to a core message that is as primal and vital to a functioning and healthy society as it is shocking to see in a theatrical release from a major studio, the unneeded accouterment and poorly developed characters are outshone and forgivable. Only the coldest viewer will remain untouched as they are reminded of their own mother or as their little one thrills at the onscreen action in the theater seat next to them.
Being a parent is an incredible blessing and a solemn responsibility, and the world needs far more movies that help us all remember that.
Role Models – Women
A Mother’s Love
- The main narrative is that of a female-voiced robot that overwrites its core corporate directive (essentially her career) as it discovers that being a loving and nurturing mother is far more fulfilling and vastly more important than doing what her programmers (re: society) have programmed her to do and be.
PARENTAL NOTES
Important Information for Parents
Our Parental Notes flag the material parents may want to know about before pressing play, including profanity, blasphemy, adult content, extreme violence, frightening intensity, hyper-stimulating sequences, and other family-content concerns.
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James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
Honestly the best children’s film to come out in a decade. There’s an almost Miyazaki feel to it. The first third of the film has a wonderful environmental storytelling element to it. Throughout the film, themes of death are dealt with beautifully and comically. Lastly, the way the robot learns and problem solves is delightful.
There’s a bit of studio interference, such as with the soundtrack and the god awful final one minute (which doesn’t ruin the film, but it was a lame Hollywood friendly moment to end on), though the majority of the film makes up with it via it’s heart and gorgeous animation.
The Iron Giant was a top five animated film for me in the past, but I think this one surpasses it.
There is literally nothing woke in this movie. It was the best movie of our children’s generation. It’s incredible, and left us all sobbing at the end. Funny moments too, but wow…it left us speechless…it’s about time we can go to the theater with our son!
This movie was incredible! I was touched throughout and loved seeing it with my daughter. The message was spectacular, the visuals were British. The story was woke free and wholesome. My only minor criticism was it did rush through the story, but I much prefer that to the average movie in todays age that are typically an hour too long.
robot really cool i like when he said i love trans people in binary code I thought that part was really cool. Nice touch!
Isn’t it amazing how they can make a movie where the main character is basically 100% a female without them making it 100% woke?
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