TL;DR – This is a stunningly beautiful film that hit me with a wave of emotions as if I were standing by the seaside watching them roll in.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit stinger.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

The Wild Robot Review –

It is school holiday time here in Australia, and that usually means a web of family films gets unleashed into the cinemas. Many are quite average fare, just looking to entertain the little ones for an hour or two in air conditioning. However, every now and again, you find something exceptional, and this is what we will be looking at today.

So, to set the scene, in the potentially distant future, a bunch of otters find a very peculiar item washed up on shore. It is a box with some contraptions. After some exploration, they accidentally set it off to discover it was a ROZZUM unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o) personal assistance robot. She is now activated and is not looking for a task. The only problem is that she does not speak wild critter, and they are all afraid of her. But when a bear attacks, she accidentally crashes into a goose nest, leaving only a single egg behind. Roz has to look past her programming with the help of Fink (Pedro Pascal), a local fox who would be happy to eat the issue away and Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), an opossum who knows about motherhood. Because the little Brightbill (Kit Connor/Boone Storm) needs to eat, swim, and fly, all before winter sets in. Because if he doesn’t leave on migration, he will die.

To say that this film is beautiful does not even come close to describing just what a joy it was to watch. This might be DreamWorks’ best animation to date, and that is coming off strong contenders like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Bad Guys. There were moments in this film that were so stunningly beautiful that it affected me on an emotional level. Which actually probably prepared me for when the narrative set in and the emotions truly flowed. The visual style of this film was very much rooted in a kind of painted realism with just a hint of stylisation to everything. This helped get around the issue that some other animated films have, where the realism is so profound that it actually feels unsettling when the animals start to talk.

The environmental work is simply stunning. They bring this roughly Pacific Northwest world to life in such extraordinary detail, understanding just when you need a burst of colour to shift things up. To support the visual beauty that the film has in spades. Seriously, much like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, much of this film could be freeze-framed and then hung on your wall. We get what has to be, for me, Kris Bowers’ best musical score to date. This was not a musical score that hid in the background, pretending not to be there. It was up front and centre, and proud to be there. I would put this score up with the How To Train Your Dragon films, and I don’t say that lightly.

They built this world with the environment and furnished it with a musical score. The next thing they needed to do was populate it with memorable characters, and oh, did they. Every animal in the film gets a moment to shine. It could be the Otters quietly moving their kids behind them, and we have genuinely terrifying grizzly bears. Oh, Matt Berry is a beaver trying to cut down the most enormous tree on the island. I am sorry, but how does that not sell this movie to you alone? Every time the opossum Pinktail and her children are on screen is comedy gold, which might be slightly amplified by the fact that the film does not shy away from the fact that some animals eat other animals.   

While there is a lot of joy in the animal cast, the heart of the film is Roz, and oh, the wonderful Lupita Nyong’o absolutely nails that role. We go on such a long journey with her from where she starts the film to where we end it, and you are with Roz every step of the way. You can see some visual cues from WALL-E and Laputa: Castle in the Sky in Roz’s design, but they have taken those inspirations and turned them into something unique. It is helped that we pair Roz with Fink, who is also going on their own journey of self-discovery and Lupita and Pedro Pascal play off each other perfectly. But to be clear, there are no weak elements in the voice cast. Kit Connor is a delight as Brightbill, Bill Nighy is perfectly cast as Longneck, a wise old goose, and look I am here for Mark Hamill as a bear.

Now, I have not read the source material for this film, so I cannot tell you how closely it follows the original work. However, I can tell you that I was utterly captivated by the narrative from start to finish. Personally, I am a sucker for found family stories, and this is one of the best versions of this I have seen. You will probably be able to chart where the film will go and what surprises will be revealed as we go, but that was not an issue for me. I will say that it maybe hits its emotional peak a bit earlier than they planned, and that does lessen the impact of the third act a touch. But that is a minor issue.

In the end, do we recommend The Wild Robot? Absolutely. This was a joy to watch from start to finish. I loved every moment of watching this family find themselves in that moment when they needed love, which might be the core lesson of the film. If you liked The Wild Robot, we would recommend to you Luca.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched The Wild Robot?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Wild Robot
Directed by – Chris Sanders
Screenplay by – Chris Sanders
Based on – The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Music by – Kris Bowers
Edited by – Mary Blee
Production/Distribution Companies – DreamWorks Animation & Universal Pictures
Starring – Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill & Catherine O’Hara with Boone Storm, Alexandra Novelle, Raphael Alejandro, Paul-Mikél Williams, Eddie Park, Dee Bradley Baker & Randy Thom and Keston John, Max Mittelman, Piotr Michael, Alessandro Beghi, Tiago Martinez, Becca Last, Madelyn Turpin, Kayleigh Rayne, Isabelle Tupin, Beckett Blomberg, Damon Fung, King Moore & Collin Erker               
Rating – Australia: PG; Canada: na; Germany: na; New Zealand: PG; United Kingdom: U; United States: PG