The Oscar for Best Animated Feature is The Wild Robot’s to lose. The film, from DreamWorks Animation, is a deeply moving, beautifully crafted example of what an animated movie can be when the medium is treated with reverence. Although it’s ostensibly for young people—and based on the children’s book series by Peter Brown—The Wild Robot is also evidence of how the genre can expand beyond kid movies to embrace complex, thoughtful theme that are universally resonant for viewers of all ages. Like the book, Chris Sanders’ onscreen adaptation is compassionate, funny and filled with unexpectedly poignant moments.
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THE WILD ROBOT ★★★★ (4/4 stars) |
The film opens on an uninhabited island in the near future, where a Universal Dynamics cargo ship has crashed and left boxes of ROZZUM utilitarian robots scattered across the shore. One, who dubs herself Roz, is still intact and is accidentally activated by a family of otters. Her purpose is to serve, but Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) can’t find a master amongst the island’s wildlife. After learning their languages, Roz accidentally destroys a goose nest, leaving only a single egg. When it hatches, she quickly realizes that her purpose, or her assignment, is to keep the runt gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor), alive. She finds help from a wily fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) and an overburdened mother opossum named Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), but at first the forest community is hesitant to come together.
As Brightbill grows up, charmingly imitating Roz’s robotic mannerisms, they realize it’s in his nature to swim and fly so he can migrate with the rest of his kind. It’s up to Roz to teach him—and ultimately fulfill her mission before summoning Universal Dynamics to return home—but not without the eventual aid of the rest of the creatures. These include Longneck (Bill Nighy), a goose who becomes a mentor to Brightbill, and Thunderbolt (Ving Rhames), a falcon who teaches the young gosling his ways. After Brightbill successfully flies away before the impending winter, Roz finds a new purpose in protecting the other animals from the harsh weather. They need to stop fighting each other, she reminds them, so they can survive together, a heartwarming message that lingers beyond the frames of the film.
There are other messages, too, like how we have to all find our way to soar, like Brightbill, or how love is a bigger mission than ticking boxes off a checklist. It’s amplified by the painting-like animation, which is colorful and impressionistic, rendering a world with real stakes and genuine emotion. The voice performances are as strong, particularly from Nyong’o, who finds a careful balance between the hollow technology of her character and the warmth of a being learning to finds her heart. Mark Hamill pops up as a grizzly bear, and Stephanie Hsu has a standout moment as Vonda, another type of Universal Dynamics’ tech. The story is broad, expanding off the island and into the human world, but it ultimately comes back to the community Roz helps to build on her small island.
There are hints of Wall-E, another film about a purposeful robot who learns to love, but The Wild Robot also pays homage to the work of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, whose affinity for nature is deeply rooted in his films. This story is, of course, set in the future, but resonates against the backdrop of our present reality, where technological advances and a growing reliance on AI threatens to disconnect us from the world we live in. Sanders presents a meaningful reminder of what’s at stake when we forget about that connection and allow technology to prevail over nature. Some of the film’s most memorable images come when Roz’s metal body transforms the longer she lives in the forest, her appearance changing with her surroundings and the animals helping rebuild the parts of her that break. We are useless without a community, the film acknowledges repeatedly, and it’s something every viewer would do well to remember. Although The Wild Robot arrives in the guise of a family film, it is ultimately for everyone.
