Robots

'Robots' is an entertaining animated film that is both funny and delightful. The animation is wonderful and has its own style. Even though it's not exactly of the Pixar quality, that actually works for the film especially with the motions. Colour has also been impressively used. The robot world is spectacular to watch. The designing is brilliant e.g. the train station and robot city.

It includes a huge impressive ensemble of voice actors (sadly most of the cast is wasted) but not all the actors were efficiently used and many suffer due to poor character development. Ewan McGregor and Robin Williams have most of the lines and they do reasonably well.

The film has a soul but the screenplay doesn't stick to the main plot. There are several plot holes and perhaps (as fun as they are) too many characters that lack development. In spite of its flaws, it's very much watchable, especially with the family. It is visually stunning and there are many funny moments, but there's surely something missing. You don't take anything away with you after the film's finished.

Yesterday I was shopping at Target and they had a bunch of movies for seven fifty, Robots was one of them. I never saw the movie before, but I figured it's just a couple more bucks then if I rented it, so I bought it and watched it last night. I have to say that I'm glad I bought it because I really enjoyed it, this was a fun animated movie that got over looked in 2005. It had great actors for the voices, Mel Brooks couldn't have been a more perfect choice, the whole look of the movie is absolutely cool to look at, and the story was extremely original. This is a great film to watch for yourself or with the family.

Rodney is a common robot with his poor parents, but he has big city dreams to meet Bigweld, the biggest robot of all time, he is the inventor who makes sure that every robot is taken care of. Rodney goes to the big city to meet Bigweld and become an inventor himself, but ends up meeting several robots who are nobody's including Fender, his new best friend. They discover that an evil robot who has taken over Bigweld's factory is planning on destroying all the old bots who can't afford to upgrade, so pretty much that's the whole town. But Rodney and his friends are dedicated to making sure that everyone can be safe as an old bot.

Robots is a very imaginative movie with a very creative story and look. I was really impressed with this movie and would highly recommend it. It has very funny moments for both the kids and the adults, so it works for a family movie very well. Robin Williams did a terrific job as Vender, he was just a great addition and brought fun comedic relief. But the whole cast sounded like they had a lot of fun with this movie. This is a fun film to watch and I think anyone could enjoy it, so grab the popcorn, because you're gonna have fun.

7/10

I attended an advance screening for this film with my daughter and her friend (both 3). They enjoyed it, but I think older kids will be much more into it. There was also a lot of humor that will be appreciated by adults. I have seen all the computer animated films of recent years(Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Nemo, etc.) and I feel this one ranks up there with the best. This movie is visually stunning. The robot world created for this movie is unbelievable. There are some pinball like sequences that I found fascinating (Rube Goldbergesque for the older folks). This movie is quite funny. I am usually not a big Robin Williams fan, I find that he can be too in your face and distracting. That really was not the case in this film. The plot of Robots was good, but I did not walk out of the theater talking about the story lines. It was all about the visuals.

Robots is probably the most technically amazing computer-animated movie I've ever seen. When you stack it up against a movie like the original Toy Story, it's astounding how far they've come in about 10 years. There is a scene were a drum of tiny ballbearings falls over, and each ballbearing is rendered perfectly. Amazing.

The voice acting in Robots is just fine, with the ensemble cast providing a nice mix of auditory delights(although I saw Jim Broadbent's (the dad in Bridget Jones') name in the credits and was unable to identify him in the movie. Greg Kinnear did a fine job and Ewan MacGregor was also decent. The biggest question mark was Robin Williams. Before the movie I found myself wondering how he could top the 'Genie' performance in Aladdin. The answer is he doesn't, but his character is responsible for a few VERY funny bits and I think he pulled it off well.

Now humor in the movie... It was clear to me that at least 80% of the adults in the audience weren't getting many of the references. If you are old enough/smart enough to catch these, they are hilarious. My favorite being when Rodney is repairing Bigweld's head and Bigweld is singing 'Daisy' very slowly. Priceless.

All in all a great movie, and I also suspect this movie will improve with subsequent viewings. Where a Shark's Tale just becomes tiresome after one viewing, I am looking forward to viewing this movie again.

Lastly, my 6 year-old son LOVED the movie. We saw it in IMAX and it completely blew him away.

While the story isn't particularly original or substantial, ROBOTS is a fun film for kids that has plenty of visual creativity. While a plot synopsis probably isn't necessary, here goes. Rodney is an aspiring robot inventor who moves to the big city to make his dreams come true, but along the way he has to deal with an evil corporate tyrant who threatens to turn old robots into scrap metal. First of all, I have to say this movie has one of the best voice casts ever assembled. Ewan McGregor plays the main character Rodney Copperbottom, and is joined by Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Robin Williams and Mel Brooks, to name a few. Every single actor brought their character to life vibrantly and with humor. Of course, with an animated movie you can't not discuss the visual elements. Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age and Rio) did an awesome job bringing this robot world to life. It kind of reminded me a little of steampunk, but more colorful and sanitized for children. There's also a number of stunningly creative sequences which are Rube Goldberg-esque in their complexity. The humor is also worthy of mention, because there's plenty of jokes that the kids will get, and some for the parents as well. There's even some hilarious usage of (then-current) pop music, and a couple other original songs. When it's all said and done, this movie isn't really the most original in terms of plot, but there are positive messages for kids and enough visual style to spare.