mydummybox

Disclaimer: I missed the last 20 minutes of the movie as, admittedly, I finally fell asleep, not so much out of boredom (although I felt quite bored by then), rather as my built-in "self-shutdown fuse" went off, which I'm grateful for as it's there to protect me against stuff I actively dislike.

Specifically, what I could not take on anymore was the clumsy animation: a weird mix between a videogame-style realistic background (at times fascinating) and seemingly more traditionally-animated animal characters. By contrast, the latter came through as half baked, as if this was a pre-production draft. Indeed, quality-wise the whole thing reminded me of those graduation works by animation classes students that can be found on youtube, just much longer and more pretentious.

The pretentiousness showed not only in the animation style, but also in the weak script, which visibly tries hard to be poetic and heart-touching, but soon falls short of its ambitions. I found the story pointless, repetitive, made of many loosely connected mini-sketches, most of which just fell flat and dispensable.

The animal characters were hard to relate with. Unless you're a cat enthusiast, that is. They're too much humanized to feel like watching a documentary (e.g. Microcosmos) and not enough to feel any empathy (e.g. A la Miyazaki).

Maybe the overarching idea (follow a bunch of animals wandering through a mysterious dystopian environment) might have worked, had it been better executed and curated.

My impression was that this movie was made mostly of elements borrowed from other contexts, and loosely glued together without the additional necessary step to properly harmonize them so to create a really immersive and compelling experience.

Overall, a wasted opportunity and a movie that I -as a longtime 360-degrees animation admirer- cannot recommend.

Had I not learned that "The Wild Robot" is based on a book by Peter Brown, I might have thought that the story had been synthesized ad hoc to please the audience (which is how most commercial movies are made these days anyway), composing a collage of elements liberally inspired by other works such as The Iron Giant, Migration, Open Season, The Incredibles... Perhaps at the hands of an AI that doesn't really know what it's doing.

As much as the movie contains top-notch visual elements, it lacks a uniformity of style and intent, and it also lacks a cohesive authorial look that would give the narrative continuity, so that the viewer could really get invested in the story and the characters, who instead seem artificial and overexposed.

There is just too much of everything, from chases to gags, as if the writers were unable to make a choice, following a logic of "the more the merrier". Conversely, in my opinion, less is often more, especially in movies.

Unwittingly, the result is the breaking of the "suspension of disbelief." At that point, the movie appears for what it is: a disconnected mishmash that tries to please everyone, dispensing an overabundance of condescending messages and sugary good feelings.

At the time of this writing, 24K votes warranted The Wild Robot a bombastic 8.4 rating, undeservedly on par with such Pixar's masterpieces as Wall-E and Up.

In fact, the quality of animated films has plummeted in recent years, partly because of too many sequels, and certainly this one is not the worst, especially in visuals. However, it takes courage and originality to make a masterpiece, and The Wild Robot sadly lacks both, which is its mortal sin, hence my disappointment.

What worst sin for a commedy than not being funny? Well, being unfunny AND silly.

Honestly it's hard to save something from this wreck. Characters are anachronistic, unconvincing stereotypes; acting is excessive and uninspired; the plot totally predictable. Unless there was some brilliant plot twist in the last ten minutes: if so, I missed it as I dropped the movie at that point out of a mix of boredom and irritation.

One might argue the movie is intentionally grotesque. Maybe. But this is no Wes Anderson; this came through just... sad, a movie built to complace an audience looking for exactly this: an old England setting, some makeshift emotions, a cheap laugh.

Sorry, definitely not my cup of tea.

English used to know how to make cleaver comedy, hopefully they will come back soon with something worth watching.