Amartya Acharya’s review published on Letterboxd:
If this is the final film by Dreamworks Animation produced entirely in-house, the studio is going out on a magnificent high. Chris Sanders' Wild Robot is a gorgeously animated spectacle and a movie that is geared towards kids as well as adults. But a major portion of this tale is dedicated to maturing - both for the robot going beyond her programming to complete her role as a mother, and for a goose to succeed in breaking into the "circle of life", but maintaining his inherent weirdness intact.
Sanders' The Wild Robot is a masterclass in balancing—placing wry, sarcastic, and quite dark humour simultaneously with animated hijinks much more comfortable within standard children's animation fare. However, it's the conjoining of pragmatism and hopefulness that seems to be the ethos of this film, as well as doubling down on the found family dynamic that can survive irrespective of societal and ecosystem dictation.
There are at least three moments where the film climaxes perfectly before the film lurches forward by pushing the plot thread in a direction that is unpredictable and enthralling. Nyong'o's performance as Roz, the titular Wild Robot is sublime but is also highlighting how the sci-fi genre integrates itself almost seamlessly within this narrative. There are moments in the film where the emotional vulnerability and poignancy work wonders because the film itself is not ashamed of embracing the simplicity of the concept with the complexity of the ideas ensconced within it. Though I have to admit, the ending of the film is the one time where it feels the film leans on its pragmatism a tad bit too much rather than just leaning back into feel-good sensibilities and ending it at least five minutes earlier.
But it's the central dynamics, coupled with some fantastic voice acting and sublime animation work (a seamless integration of 2.5D models over painterly substrates, along with a gorgeous smattering of colours allowed to shine with their natural brightness), and a strong beating heart at its centre that papers over the film's flaws.
Extraordinary stuff.
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