The Wild Robot – After a crash of a wild island, task oriented robot ROZZUM is at a loss as to how to be of help. The animals are more concerned with survival than giving her instructions. Yet she soon finds that the task of caring for an orphaned goose is way more than her programming allows for. Will Roz be able to do what’s best for the gosling?

The Wild Robot (2024) – Director: Chris Sanders

Rating: U

Running Length: 102 mins

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy

Genres: Comedy, Action, Science Fiction

REVIEW: THE WILD ROBOT

Children’s films are a genre that can be a misnomer: a great film is a great film, no matter who it is aimed at. It’s simply as you get older you get to a point where you’ve seen a lot of the tropes before. Sometimes this helps. That ‘The Wild Robot’ recalls movies such as the much loved ‘Iron Giant’ (with a smattering of Pixar’s ‘Wall-E’) will likely be enough to get any parent over the hurdle of giving it a go, little ones notwithstanding.

Writer / director Chris Sanders has great form with crafting movies that stoke the emotions as well as providing great family entertainment. The ‘How To Train Your Dragon‘ series was consistently high quality, and ‘The Croods’ found family bonding in the stone age. Here, the bright enthusiasm of ROZZUM Unit 7134 – which quickly gives way to an ever so slightly pained demeanour as the wildness she accidentally finds herself in refuses to adhere to her algorithms – is a hugely warming lead character. The usual qualities of found family, (surrogate) parental stress, and emotional hurdles are all grown with strong roots in character. Roz’s (Lupita Nyong’o) naivety pairs well with fox Fink’s (Pedro Pascal) sly but vulnerable realism.

At times Sanders schools ‘The Wild Robot’ into extended saccharine sequences that too overtly pull at the heartstrings to be effective; the swelling music montage of a bird literally flying the nest is not so much on the nose as rubbed into the face. At such times a little goes a long way and Sanders can’t help but be darn sure we all know what we should be feeling in such moments. Yet aside from the obvious emotional beats with Roz and surrogate child Brightbill (a young Kit Conner laying on the wobbling vocal tones to disarm any parent), it is Fink’s fears of abandonment that claw more at the throat in the quieter moments.

‘The Wild Robot’ is packed full of fun gags spiced up with a little casual disinterest for life (this is the dog-eat-dog animal world, after all) all delivered in a sumptuous animation style that beams its world right out of the screen. Parents may zone out here and there while the movie spells things out for the little ones, but the result is still a great family movie that expertly guides you through it’s ecosystem.

CONTENT: IS ‘THE WILD ROBOT’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

The opening shot is a 10 second point of view journey through a thunderstorm. This is loud with strobe lightning flashes.

Much of the opening 10 – 15 minutes shows the reality of a wildlife environment where everything hunts or is hunted for food. The matter-of-fact nature of this makes for scenes that are comedic in tone. For example, as the ROZZUM Robot (Roz) explores looking for a task, she picks up a crab. This is immediately snatched from her hand by a seagull.

A fluttering butterfly is gobbled by a bird which is in turn caught by a wild cat. Off camera there are snarling noises and the bird’s severed head pops into shot and rolls up into Roz’s hand.

A bear is disturbed and gives chase. The bear is large and loud and Roz runs away. This chase is shot as a scary and exciting moment and lasts around 20 seconds, following which Roz falls out of its reach. However, in doing so Roz realises she has crushed a birds nest. The limp dead bird and smashed eggs are shown. There is uplifting music when Roz discovers one egg left unbroken.

Roz learns to speak to the animals and talks to an opossum called Pinktail about raising young. Pinktail is covered in her young and seems generally indifferent to them (albeit that they are quite independent).  Whilst talking about the number of her children there is a scream and a growl off camera and she pauses and lowers the number given. 30 seconds later we see the scuffed up opossum joey chirpily say, “It’s ok Mom, I’m alive!”

Main character Fink the fox knocks a crab into boiling water. It bubbles up, dead, and Fink eats it.

Roz looks after a gosling named Brightbill, who hatched from the unbroken egg. Brightbill struggles to learn to swim. He goes to join other geese who mock him for being raised by the ‘monster’. Bill is held underwater by a bully goose and panics, appearing to almost drown. This happens 2 to 3 times, lasting a total of around 10 seconds. Although quick this could be upsetting for small children and also imitable. Shortly after Brightbill is chased by a large pike and Roz is stuck, unable to help. This is an exciting and tense sequence that lasts around a minute.

In an emotional scene Brightbill shouts at Roz and says “You’re not my mom!” This is a sad moment.

A large amount of standard ROZZUM robots appear which lack the personality or friendliness of Roz. They scan the forest and flash red in a scary way. A bulky one scans with lasers intermittently and the animals shrink back from it.

The robot in charge of the ROZZUMs is a hovering machine with lots of tentacle appendages underneath it. It speaks in an overly bright and insincere manner and wraps its tentacles around Roz as it tries to persuade her to board its ship. This leads to Roz fleeing and being chased by a large amount of bulky ROZZUMs who fire lasers at her and into the forest, which is full of animal characters we’ve come to like. A large fire sweeps through the forest and the scared animals have to work together to combat it. Exciting music makes this a big action sequence.

On the tentacle robot’s ship, Fink seeks out Roz. He has to keep quiet but when he reaches Roz she doesn’t recognise him. Fink is very upset and this emotion is quietly portrayed for around 1 minute until the situation changes. A character leaves the forest which is upsetting but the those left behind band together to support each other.  They later set out on an expedition to seek them out.

CAN I SEE A CLIP OF ‘THE WILD ROBOT’?

https://youtu.be/Yj6FYVAzhjY?si=jIDry38N3lJBOrfk

VERDICT: IS ‘THE WILD ROBOT’ FOR KIDS?

With big swings about found family, parenting, and finding yourself, you can’t get much more child friendly than ‘The Wild Robot’. It plays to a slightly younger age range than Sanders’ previous movies with its chirpy blank slate protagonist and animal cast. Yet the tongue in cheek indifference to how, well, everything eats everything else, might be something to think about when watching with the smallest of family members. Overall though we would say this movie is suitable for all ages.

• Violence: 1/5 (various animals attack or consume other animals, Brightbill is physically bullied for a short scene)
• Emotional Distress: 2/5 (Brightbill and Fink have emotional moments centred around abandonment and sense of belonging)
• Fear Factor: 2/5 (the standard ROZZUMs can be a little frightening)
• Sexual Content: 0/5
• Bad Language: 0/5
• Dialogue: 1/5 (various lines of dialogue about the food tree and circle of life i.e. fight for survival in the wild. These are told in a very matter of fact way: no character is especially bothered by it)
• Other Notes: Deals with themes of family, loss, abandonment, duty, protection of those you care about, and that what you want may not be what is best for others.

Words by Mike Record