Collins Ezeanyim’s review published on Letterboxd:
Two Things about this film:
Thing #1) You’re Welcome
Thing #2) Fuck This Movie
The “You’re Welcome” is due to the fact that several graduates from my alma mater - Texas A&M - <a href="
thebatt.com/life-arts/the-wild-robot-from-idea-to-the-big-screen/">worked on this movie. Obviously I didn’t contribute anything to this feature. But I love that my awesome university produced visual artists who contributed to this amazing feature.
So, yeah, on behalf of Texas A&M, you’re welcome.
And as for the other thing - yeah, fuck this movie for making me ugly cry at least a couple of times.
I love the concept of this picture. For decades we’ve been inundated with movies about artificial intelligence gaining sentience, going rogue and becoming mankind’s greatest enemy. The Terminator movies. I, Robot. The most recent Mission: Impossible. HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hell, the 2019 Chucky movie. Computers are always becoming self-aware and wrecking shit in movies.
This is a story where the opposite happens. A robot - already programmed to be friendly - learns true compassion and love when she unwittingly becomes a mother… To a goose… After she accidentally obliterates the gosling’s family.
It’s a deliberate striking contrast. The robot in question, ROZZUM 7134 aka “Roz”, is a high-tech wonder. And she somehow finds herself in a wilderness untouched by human hands. The forested island is gorgeous. And despite being an animated fictional place, serves as a strong reminder to keep certain places on the planet pristine.
Makeshift families are a soft spot for me. Blood ties are exceptionally strong, but chosen family is often stronger. And watching this makeshift unit: Roz, the baby goose, Brightbill and an adorable, wily fox, Mink grow as a unit is a perfect recipe for tugging on the heartstrings.
(That's why Thing #2, I was sobbing about an hour into the runtime).
The way this script depicts a robot learning about how to navigate a family is expert. Computers are deterministic machines. They exist only to execute their programmed functions. And there’s a certain cuteness in how Roz approaches raising Brightbill as a series of tasks - a puzzle to be solved. But as she experiences the joys of motherhood, the affections of friendship and the wonders of nature, something changes in her. A change that falls outside of her programming. It’s clear that she’s developing a soul.
But how? I realize that this is a futile question to ask in an animated film featuring anthropomorphic animals. Fantasy is inherent to this entire story. And that’s likely just the answer, MAGIC. Some incorporeal genie or silent spirit saw to it to seed our android protagonist with a soul. The “how” is never explained and the audience happily accepts this.
There are also themes of accepting change - and it’s a lesson that is effectively taught to young and old alike (and everyone, in between). Characters find it necessary to push past their comfort zone. Confront peers about how they want to be seen and directly tackle the issue of lost.
While these are heady subjects, the movie is so…light. And airy. It’s a cozy vibe. I loved every second of it. It’s also incredibly funny in places (those possums!). And “Male Bovine Excrement” is now permanently etched into my lexicon.
This movie’s sorcery involves making something that was mechanical into something meaningful. There’s an inherent coldness to technology and this film does wonders by rendering Roz and her relationships into something warm.
In a story bereft of humans, The Wild Robot is an excellent example of what should be the best of humanity.
