The Wild Robot Review: DreamWorks Reaches New Highs with Emotionally Riveting Family Movie

   September 27, 2024
the wild robot review
The Wild Robot (2024)

Score: 7/10

The Wild Robot is inarguably one of the better animated movies DreamWorks has made – one that is both visually and emotionally punching for the entirety of its brisk 102 minute runtime that flies by and is over before you realize it.

The movie follows a shipwrecked and supremely intelligent robot called Roz (impeccably voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), who is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island’s animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose whom the Roz names Brightbill (Kit Connor). Alongside Brightbill and a cunning fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), Roz learns the meaning of family in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

There’s a level of emotionality to The Wild Robot that I can’t remember DreamWorks ever even attempting. It’s closer to the likes of their contemporaries, but the Hollywood animated studio manages to balance the movie’s tone and long set pieces – thanks to a beautifully-rendered, painterly aesthetic enhanced by quick moments of flourishes and movements by the frame. It’s one of the few animated movies I’ve ever seen that looks as if it was filmed by a camera rather than generated by a computer or hand drawn.

And the score is among 2024’s best compositions as Kris Bowers crafts one bold and intense piece after another. It gives the film another layer of emotion on top of an already thick story. There’s a rushing energy to what happens in The Wild Robot, as if the movie can’t wait to show you its next trick time and time again.

But the movie can also feel cloying in long stretches. The plot is sweet and sentimental, but also occasionally manipulative during montage scenes where we see Brightbill grow up and learn the ropes of being a goose. The movie traverses the cycle of life, from a small creature reliant on the parental figures available, to venturing out into unknown terrain.

Director Chris Sanders has been working in the DreamWorks factory for a while now (previously directing How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods), but The Wild Robot is a major step up for the seasoned filmmaker. He has his thumb on the pulse of this uber-rich picture from beginning to mostly the end.

Which is to say that I didn’t care much for the explosive final act where the robots from an advanced civilized world come to bring Roz back, only to begin a battle against the animals of the island. It becomes more like a classic Hollywood tale at this point, using action in place of drama when the entirety of the movie’s run time up until that point was more than capable without it.

But the overall package of The Wild Robot is ultimately quite honorable and noteworthy. The animated genre offers about 4-5 solid movies a year, and The Wild Robot falls into that category. It’s probably the frontrunner for Best Animated Picture at the Academy Awards, and I’d add that we’ve had much worse winners should this take home the prize. It’s sweet and effortlessly likeable, even if you can see the mechanisms of it working behind the scenes.

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