The Wild Robot Review: Easily The Most Heart-Touching Film Of The Year

RATING - ⭐⭐⭐✨ 3.5/5*

The Wild Robot Review Movie Talkies:

Chris Sanders, the man who directed Lilo & Stitch (2002), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and The Croods (2013) and was also associated with memorable animated films like Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Mulan (1998), is back with another memorable animated film, The Wild Robot. He goes the sci-fi way this time, but makes more sense than human dramas. The wonderful filmography behind his name adds another wonderful film, and this time it's a modern tale of motherhood with old emotions. The Wild Robot has some wilderness, which helps you to connect with the wild idea of it, only to leave emotionally spellbound at the end. Don't miss it! I can easily call it the most emotional and most heart-touching film of the year (and likely to remain so with two and a half months to go).

The film begins with a Universal Dynamics cargo ship losing six all-purpose ROZZUM robots during a storm, and one of them, ROZZUM 7134, aka Roz, survives. After waking up, it asks for the task, but all the animals on the island run away from it, calling it a "monster." Roz accidentally crashes a goose's nest and finds one egg. A gosling comes out of it and assumes Roz, the robot, as his mother, because that's the first thing he sees in this world. Fink, a hungry fox, joins the two in order to teach the gosling to eat, swim, and fly—as instructed and feed as an order in Roz's system. The gosling is named Brightbill and grows to become a much smarter goose due to his robotic upbringings. Like every Goose, he has to learn to fly before the winter, which will complete the task set for Roz and will eventually part the two away. What happens when Brightbill meets other species of his kind and learns that the robot is not his real mother? Find out your answers in the film.

Chris Sanders wrote a beautiful screenplay for Peter Brown's original work. Usually, we have to wait till the end to get emotional because most of the emotional segments are stored in for the climax. But with this one, you have a tearjerking scene much before the pre-climax portion (at an hour, to be more precise). Roz wants to bid a proper goodbye to Brightbill, but they are not keeping well for a while. The leader of the goose's group knows what it means, so he tells Brightbill, "Sometimes hearts have their own conversation." To Roz, he shows his respect, saying, "Brightbill was never supposed to make it till here." A bundle of tissues ends there. We have a couple of more emotional segments; one features all the animals of the island, and the other one is when Roz decides to take their leave for their own good. You'll need a couple of more tissues there, so you better take at least 4-5 tissues along with popcorn and a cold drink. 

There was a time when Pixar used to do it like a pro, with unbelievable creatures, robots, or even toys. The similar emotional formula is now being used by DreamWorks and Illumination. DreamWorks has found a perfect balance this time, as The Wild Robot makes for a powerful entertainer along with heartwarming drama. It suits the kids, youth, and adults—all age groups. The satirical beginning turns into a creative family drama, and you don't even realize when the narrative starts changing its colors. It keeps going on until you find yourself fully immersed in this wild world of a robot, a goose, and other animals. It's not easy to make people cry over animals or robots. Pixar's Wall-E did it, and now The Wild Robot does the same. Sanders himself made us emotional with an odd pair of a dragon and a boy; this time, he brings another odd pair—a goose and a robot. The metaphorical bonding of motherhood will win you over again and again. You just have to have a "heart," just like Roz says, "This time it is coming from somewhere here (pointing at chest/heart). 

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The Wild Robot has a good visual appeal as the chase sequences, action scenes, and wide-screen explosion add big-screen value to it. The sound design was good, and so was the cinematography. The voice cast of Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, and others sounded fine. Chris Sanders' vision to look at this adventurous tale is emotionally very engaging but misuses its intellectual potential. This film could have easily ended with a sacrifice and a speech about relationships, but he had to give it an extra push of "happy ending," which I believe was too typical. Nonetheless, his film had won my ratings much before that scene, so it doesn't really matter now. Go, watch it, experience it, enjoy it, and do not hesitate to drop some tears.