'The Wild Robot' movie review: Pedro Pascal-starrer is a spirited adventure rendered with a touch of heart

The Wild Robot

Film: The Wild Robot
Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara, Ving Rhames
Director: Chris Sanders
Rating: 3.5/5
Runtime: 102 min.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Chris Sanders who made his directorial debut at Walt Disney Animation with ‘Lilo & Stitch' in 2002, takes a wonderfully tender, compassionate break from animation stereotype with Dreamworks' ‘The Wild Robot.' This film has a beautifully streamlined uncluttered story and is immensely captivating because of it.

The screenplay by Sanders, adapted from the acclaimed children's books by Peter Brown, is both emotionally moving and humorously entertaining. There's also a whole lot of messaging hidden within its folds - some of which are conveyed with an unapologetic heavy hand. Teamwork, cooperation, coexistence, acceptance of those different from you, nurturing, surrogacy, adoption of those less fortunate, choosing love and caring over violence, protection of the ecosystem for survival of the species - are just some of the messages that come through powerfully enough.

A bot named Rozzum 7134 or Roz(Lupita Nyong'o), gets washed ashore on an island populated entirely by anthropomorphic critters. Its packaging has come apart so it escapes from its box, and greets the eager ‘beavers' and other wildlife with its pre-programmed eager-to-please opening statement. Roz is searching for a master/owner and when it questions the animals around, "Do you need assistance?" their curiosity turns to fear and they run away. Roz is stranded and literally a fish out of water. She is programmed to receive instructions and complete tasks but the animals around her are ill-equipped to understand that. Roz wanders off into the island's wilderness, accidentally destroys a Goose nest leaving just one undamaged egg which it fights to save. Committed to caring for the lone surviving egg, Roz duels with a scheming, hungry fox Fink (Pedro Pascal) who sees the egg as food. Eventually they come to an understanding, the egg hatches and out emerges a tiny gosling Brightbill (Kit O'Connor), who follows Roz around. The three misfits later on form a family of sorts. Stephanie Hsu lends voice to threatening bot Vontra, Bill Nighy to Longneck, Catherine O'Hara to mother opossum Pinktail, and Mark Hamill to Thorn the grizzly bear.

Eschewing toonish chaos, Sanders tells his story like a fairytale. The thrills here are underlined with tender human feelings and emotions. Sanders' affection for the animal kingdom is doubly emphasized because of the lack of human characters here. The villains are all manufactured factory produced bots who are assigned the task of bringing back Roz from the wilderness.

In a refreshing eye-pleasing break away from Animation tradition, Sanders and team with Jakob Hjort Jensen as head of animation leading the creatives, use an original paintbrush style to embolden the look of storybook illustrations. The forest island's lush landscapes and untamed wilderness are brought to life with gorgeous onscreen imagery in a unique manner. The titular android is remarkably resilient, self-sufficient, a linguist with an ability to talk to animals and uses intuition to save the day. The film has vivid colorful computer animation, accompanied by quirky characters with realistic design, a moving original score by Kris Bowers and an impressive voice cast lending sync support. The action set-pieces are spirited and rousing and the humour keeps you interested and involved. Go for it!