The Wild Robot movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert

From its very opening frames, the artistry of “The Wild Robot” bursts through every image. We’ve become so worn down by American CGI animation that barely considers the visuals in a form that once shaped imaginations for entire generations. The great Chris Sanders and his team have made a film with literally hundreds of shots that could be printed and framed on a wall. Their approach isn’t the cold, sterile feel that you get from so many modern cartoons. It’s more like moving art; it feels like you can almost see the brushstrokes on a moving painting. In that sense, it owes more to films like “Wolfwalkers” or the work of Studio Ghibli than a traditional major studio cartoon. One could watch “The Wild Robot” with the sound off entirely and still have a rewarding experience—turn it on and you have one of the best animated films of the decade.

Lupita Nyong’o proves yet again that she can do anything, perfectly voicing a robot named ROZZUM 7314 (or “Roz”) that crashes onto an uninhabited island. Roz is programmed to be an assistant for whoever purchases her, so she first scours her new home for a master, seeking to complete any sort of mission before she activates a signal to return home. These opening scenes of a robot trying desperately to be helpful to any creature that needs it are surprisingly hysterical, rich with heart and humor.

The journey leads her to cross paths with some of the more rambunctious animals on this remote locale, including a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), an opossum named Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), a grizzly bear named Thorn (Mark Hamill), and a beaver named Paddler (Matt Berry). She also quickly learns that nature is a terrifying place. One of many wonderful things about Sanders’ adaptation of the book by Peter Brown is how unafraid this film is of death, which used to be a subject that children’s fiction helped little ones understand but now seems forbidden in animation. Nature can kill you.

Roz comes face to face with death when she accidentally falls on a nest, killing a mother bird and almost all of her eggs, except for one. When that egg cracks, it reveals a runt that Roz names Brightbill (Kit Connor), who imprints on the robot as his mom. If nature had its way, Brightbill wouldn’t survive—runts don’t make it in the wild. But most runts don’t have a robot as a mother.

“The Wild Robot” shares DNA with films like Sanders’ masterful “How to Train Your Dragon” and another timeless tale of a robot who defies its programming in “The Iron Giant,” one of my personal favorites of all time. However, it’s not a film that’s content to merely mimic its inspirations, finding a unique voice in its blend of tension, humor, and grace.

This is a movie that’s bursts with unexpected humor—often in jokes about how easy it is for animals to die in the wild—but also just so deeply heartfelt in every frame, and only rarely in a manner that feels at all manipulative. The visual artistry in the painter-like compositions comes through in other elements too from the all-around stellar voice work (especially Nyong’o, who finds nuance in what could have been a cold vocal turn) to a great score by Kris Bowers. The truth is that one can tell when a project like this is made for profit vs. when it’s made for artistic passion, and everyone involved in “The Wild Robot” poured their hearts into it. You can see it. You can hear it. You can feel it. And that truly matters, especially in an era when so much children’s entertainment feels like nothing more than a cynical cash grab. This is made from the heart in every way. And that’s what allows it connect with yours.

Chris Sanders once described his approach to “The Wild Robot” as “a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest.” As insane as that may sound, he pulled it off. It’s a film about robots and wild creatures, but it’s also a movie about parents and children. Roz learns the great difficulty of being a mother, discovering that sometimes the best way to take care of a child is to discard the programming that we thought would teach us how to do so. Sometimes you just have to trust your heart. Sometimes you need to be wild.

This review was filed from the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens on September 27^th.