I no longer feel the imperative to see and review every animated feature that comes along, but Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot is exceptional in every way. It embraces a wide range of emotions and somehow manages to keep cynicism at bay.  

Based on a book by Peter Crown, The Wild Robot enables us to watch the equivalent of a classic fairy tale unfolding, beat by beat. Its main character is a futuristic robot (whose deliberately imperfect rendering differentiates her from earlier animated droids like The Iron Giant and Wall*E.) Following a disastrous crash landing on a remote island, this malfunctioning machine—with a female voice and personality—becomes the unlikely mother figure to an orphaned hatchling who imprints on her from the moment he opens his little eyes. Amidst the fauna on the island, a wiseguy fox becomes her sidekick. 

With no sense of following an agenda, the movie embraces primal feelings of loneliness, attachment, friendship, loyalty, and kindness while doling out smart, funny gags involving faceless Big Brother-ish corporations, global warming, and the need for all different species to find a way to get along. 

Lupita Nyong’o delivers a beautifully nuanced performance as the robot Roz, perfectly matched by Pedro Pascal as the cunning fox named Fink. As the gosling grows up, he is played by Kit Connor, and if your ears are well-tuned, they may recognise other actors like Bill Nighy, Ving Rhames and Catherine O’Hara along the way. However, there is no sense of “stunt casting” or drawing on these actors’ perceived personalities; they are all working in service of the film. 

The Wild Robot is a genuinely beautiful movie in every sense of that adjective. Its production design is impressive, to say the least, but there are no weak links in its chain, from character design to its exquisitely rendered environment. Sanders and DeBlois put together an A-list team of colleagues to help them realise their vision for this picture. One of them, the gifted composer Kris Bowers, also brings his A-game to the project. 

If you don’t have children, don’t feel funny about going to a cinema to experience The Wild Robot. As you brush away a tear, you’ll thank me for recommending it. 

9/10 

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