The Wild Robot – Film Review

Director – Chris Sanders
Writers – Chris Sanders, Peter Brown
Stars – Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor

When a container ship is hit by a typhoon, several extremely expensive robots are lost at sea. One of these robots, Rozzum Unit 7134 or Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) is washed up on an entirely wild island, where the animals run free and there is no hint of human life. For Roz, who is designed to serve the needs of humans, this is quite a problem! She looks for her new master on the island, trying to find what task she is to carry out. Eventually, she meets a runt gosling called Brightbill (Kit Connor) and after much deliberation, decides that keeping this young goose alive is her new purpose!

This is a new film from Dreamworks, the company that previously brought us Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon and Madagascar. It is written and directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon) and based on the book series by Peter Brown. It has an impressive list of voice actors with household names such as Pedro Pascal as Fink, Catherine O’Hara as Pinktail, Bill Nighy as Longneck and Mark Hamill as Thorn. There are also some less well-known names such as Matt Berry as Paddler, and Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt that do well in their parts. It’s a simple tale of a robot who learns to move beyond its programming and to find out what love is, and yes, you’ve possibly seen something similar before but that’s not to say this new version doesn’t make all the right moves.

While the majority of the bigger names above play small parts, Pedro Pascal as a wily fox Fink is a mainstay of the film, and he’s perfectly cast as the roguish creature turned caring parent. The film doesn’t shy away from the reality of nature and we’re shown that creatures do eat other creatures, although obviously not in a particularly gruesome fashion, it’s still a kid’s story after all.

The story is aimed at smaller kids and is quite simplistic and predictable at times but it also has a lot for older viewers. There is a surprisingly hard edge about the natural world, making it more like a nature documentary than a Disney film! Pascal as Fink has wit and charm. He plays nicely off Lupita Nyong’o’s Roz, who is always calm and collected as a robot, with the same calm delivery as Alexa or Siri. Although not a vintage year for animations, this is certainly a contender for Best Animation. It pulls at every heartstring, making it almost impossible to sit through dry-eyed!