Luke Thorne’s review published on Letterboxd:
Chris Sanders’s warm-hearted science-fiction animated adventure in which a robot’s programming is tasked by the natural world after it crash lands on an island wealthy in wildlife.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Peter Brown, which was published eight years earlier, the story concerns the adventure of a robot – ROZZUM unit 7134, named ‘Roz’ (Lupita Nyong’o) for short – that is stranded on an uninhabited island and is forced to learn to adapt to the punitive environments, progressively making relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of a bereaved gosling.
Lupita Nyong’o gives an excellent voice performance in her role as the title character who is going to get a lot more than she bargained for once she arrives on the island, while Kit Connor (Heartstopper) is decent as Brightbull, the orphaned goose who Roz is forced to look after.
Elsewhere, Pedro Pascal is fine as Fink, the red fox who is the first animal Roz assists, while Catherine O’Hara (Home Alone) is moderate as Pinktail, the opossum giving Roz some assistance on how to take care of Brightbull.
Also giving respectable voice performances are Bill Nighy as the elderly goose Longneck, Stephanie Hsu as the robot Vontra, Mark Hamill as the grizzly bear Thorn, Matt Berry as the beaver Paddler and Ving Rhames as the falcon Thunderbolt.
The direction from Sanders is excellent because he allows the facial expressions to be seen to a strong effect throughout, while also keeping a mostly pleasant atmosphere and a strong light tone happening as well.
The script is written to a terrific standard by the director as he makes the movie really easy to follow and creates some humour too, meaning the movie never takes itself too seriously. But even when the movie isn’t funny, you can still understand what is happening, because the narrative is definitely there from beginning to end.
The camera, music and visual effects stand out best in terms of the technical aspects, because the camera makes very good use of the locations and also captures the occasional tense, sometimes-funny moments, and moving moments well, which get the edge-of-the-seat status; the music is very enjoyable to listen to; the visual effects dazzle whenever they appear on screen.
At the time of writing, the movie got 4 Golden Globe nominations: Best Animated Film, Best Original Score (Kris Bowers), Best Original Song (Kiss the Sky, which is excellent) and Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. This means history has been made, because The Wild Robot is the most nominated animated movie at the Golden Globes.
Overall, The Wild Robot is an absolutely superb animated movie, due to the good voice performances from the star-cast, along with the excellent direction, script, mostly pleasant atmosphere, strong light tone and technical aspects. One of the best movies from this year.
