Daniel Cruse’s review published on Letterboxd:
I found this movie really refreshing for a few reasons. Firstly, the art style is breathtaking. One of the most beautiful movies of the year. Secondly, it’s a big, wide release animated movie that is not a sequel or related to any prior films, and it’s exciting to see something like this getting the premium format theaters because it feels fresh and new.
And finally, this is a true, blue kids movie, in a way that I admire. I’ve loved a lot of PIXAR’s recent output, but I’ve also grown a little fatigued with their insistence on making everything so clever and tongue-in-cheek, to the point where I feel like a lot of the best parts of the film would be lost on the younger audiences who are the main target demo in the first place. The Wild Robot is a truly universal movie, that anyone at any age could enjoy wholeheartedly. But it doesn’t dumb itself down for those younger viewers either. The first half of the movie takes a surprisingly mature approach to communicating the cruel indifference of the natural world.
They do end up wrapping everything in a sweet little bow by the final sequence, but I think that’s okay, because it is a movie for small children. They got their dose of reality in the first act, it’s fine to be sappy and sentimental the rest of the way through.
There are only two moves I will fault The Wild Robot for. The first is that they just couldn’t resist the temptation to include a sickeningly sweet, middling pop song over an emotional montage. The second is the movie’s turn to action, which I thought was jarring in tone and could’ve been handled in a smaller way.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this, and I hope a lot of families go out to see it.
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