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The Wild Robot Movie Review

The Wild Robot is a 2024 animated science fiction film directed by Chris Sanders. It is one of the best DreamWorks Animation movies and a great return to form for the studio.

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“Sometimes, to survive, you must become

more than you were programmed to be“

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Shipwrecked on a deserted island, a robot named Roz must learn to adapt to its new surroundings. Building relationships with the native animals, Roz soon develops a parental bond with an orphaned gosling. Based on the children’s book of the same name, the story is part of a trilogy of novels and let’s hope that we get two more films after this wonderful first one. DreamWorks has been in quite a dire state for a while now, so they needed this movie as much as we needed as audiences to get for once a warmhearted, simple tale that is perfect for all ages.

This is a simple tale, but one that is told with a lot of nuance and cleverness. The messaging here is perfect for kids and surprisingly old-fashioned, which made it more timeless. The movie preaches the importance of community and being a part of said community and how friendship and family are essential for a happy life. It is also very much a story of motherhood as well as the story about humanity as this robot learns to go against programming to learn to be more human. The idea that animals have their inherently programmed behavioral patterns was contrasted smartly with the robots’ programming.

Roz is a lovely main character. This robot is designed in a sort of traditional way while still being memorably unique in her own way. I particularly liked the way she would open her torso to hide things in there and how resilient she was. The fact that she could mimic other animals’ movements was also a great touch. Her learning what it means to be human and developing this beautiful motherly relationship with the gosling and friendship with the fox and other animals was the heart of this very sweet film that will touch even the most cynical among us.

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Brightbill is just adorable and I loved his clumsiness and awkwardness. His arc is an interesting one as the movie honestly stated that he would have never survived as a runt without outside help. Fink the fox is one of the funniest characters in the story and his friendship with the other two is grounded and heartwarming. Longneck voiced by Bill Nighy was one of the standouts of the supporting players. A lovely character. The bear was also cool, the beaver was very funny in his architecture obsession and of course those opossums were hilariously obsessed with dark themes like death in a similar way to Lumalee from the ‘Mario’ movie.

The Wild Robot continues the current trend in US animation that is all about mixing 2D and 3D techniques. The result is a gorgeous-looking movie that features photorealistic backgrounds, but character designs that are refreshingly traditional – their bodies almost seem to be surrounded by lines. There is also a painterly, almost watercolor quality to some of the natural landscapes and the film made use of its forest setting to such a remarkable degree. The robot design was fantastic too and the science fiction elements in this story were well contrasted with the more naturalistic elements.

The voice acting is excellent. Yes, this is one of those movies that did that celebrity voice casting thing, but at least they all did a great job with the standouts being the moving Lupita Nyong’o in the lead role and a surprisingly funny Pedro Pascal in the fox role. He sounded nothing like himself, which was impressive. The directing from Chris Sanders is reliably terrific and this is one of his best filmmaking efforts to date. The score is pretty good, but the couple of songs included were just serviceable.

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The dialogue is actually quite strong, but there was a part of me that wished for a silent approach to storytelling for this movie. Last year’s ‘Robot Dreams’ showed that the less dialogue in animation you have, the more cinematic your film will be. With that being said, the dialogue still worked as the movie has some great messages to teach kids and remind adults and it is a great watch for the whole family. The movie is tonally dissonant at times as it tries to depict the cruelty of an animal’s life, but it still ended on a note where they all worked together. Even if the tone was somewhat uneven, the humorous touches were terrific and I laughed out loud more than a couple of times. I was also genuinely moved by its ending that was open for a sequel in the best way possible.