THE WILD ROBOT– 5 STARS

There’s a look kids have when they are enamored with their cherished parents or guardians. It’s not really a stare or a gawk, but they will lock eyes and shine a beam of silent, wordless appreciation. Babies wield this look often. As they age toward adolescence and adulthood, the frequency of these moments diminish. Every now and then, though, at an important moment of accomplishment or completion, an older child will recognize the moment and understand the sacrifices and contributions of that present adult. They will shoot that thankful and devoted look of eye contact back like they used to, years after being a baby. These perfect microcosm moments, of all the possible connections and interactions at hand, boost The Wild Robot from Dreamworks Animation.

However, instead of these bonds occurring between emotive humans in The Wild Robot, those magical looks— burning like a forest fire of heart– happen between an undersized orphaned gosling and a castaway mechanical robot. This review is not going to tell you when those looks happen. You’ll see them, and you’ll know. Personification be damned, that look shouldn’t happen or work with that pairing, but, by golly, does it ever hit hit like a ton of bricks in this joyous and lovely family film.

LESSON #1: THE IMPACT OF MOTHER-FIGURES– Among many other lessons and themes in The Wild Robot, the doting relationship between a child and an adoptive parent ascends higher than all others. This movie is an adventurous tribute to the substitute mother-figures in the world, like foster moms, grandmothers, mentors, coaches, babysitters, teachers, and plenty others. Father-figures get more love (and more George Michael and Brad Paisley songs too) than their female equivalents, and that’s a shame. The best of those non-related individuals are out there doing a true mother’s work to be protective, assuage fears, impart wisdom, and share quality time for their child’s growth in whatever areas or challenges lie before them. The Wild Robot has one the best mother-figures you’re going to find in recent memory, and those efforts cannot skip celebration.

Rewind to how The Wild Robot gets to this central union. In a semi-post-apocalyptic future spiraling from climate change, a cargo ship commissioned by the tech giant Universal Dynamics wrecks against the Giant’s Causeway-like basalt columns of an uninhabited island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelgo. The only surviving asset is one of their ROZZUM utiliarium robots: Unit 7134, nicknamed Roz and voiced by 12 Years a Slave Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o. Bolstered by its refined non-violent programming, an Alpha 113 processor, and instant physical mimicry, the plucky robot begins to explore the raw coniferous grandeur of its first habitat, introducing itself to all sorts of wildlife with sales pitches and printed stickers to be her Universal Dynamics customers. The shocked and frightened local fauna deem the intrusive Roz a “monster” and avoid her at all costs.

When Roz barks up the wrong tree in the form of encountering Thorn, the island’s massive grizzly bear (Mark Hamill) and alpha predator, a skirmish and chase occurs. Falling down a cliff to escape, Roz inadvertently crushes a family of geese in their nest. Only one egg survives, which garners both Roz’s careful and corrective attention and that of a hungry red fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). After it is wrestled away by Roz, the egg hatches prematurely to bring a runt baby gosling into the world. True to its nature, the gosling’s anthropomorphic eyes imprint on the first thing they see, namely Roz, and that aforementioned look between an offspring and its parent begins. Fink and Roz settle on a friendly partnership, and the baby goose is eventually named Brightbill.

LESSON #2: OBSERVE YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND LEARN– The gosling enters the dangerous food web of this rugged landscape right alongside the newbie Roz. The dexterous automaton has learning software that eventual picks up the animal languages (allowing the film’s cast of voice performers to grow beyond Pascal and Hamill to include Catherine O’Hara, Bill Highy, Matt Berry, and Ving Rhames), but Brightbill has to learn his talents the analog and old-fashioned way. To mature and become accepted by the other geese in time for their annual winter migration, he must eat, swim, and fly. These are the eager goals Roz takes on to teach her adoptive son, while ultimately evolving herself to listen with a different part of her own construction than installed sensors.

LESSON #3: HAVING A CAN-DO ATTITUDE– This coming-of-age path in The Wild Robot melds the coded notions of animal’s native instincts and a machine’s essential programming as keenly one and the same. For Roz, she imparts a can-do attitude as a driven robot that always completes its task, especially this specific parental one for Brightbill. The movie’s rallying cry from this motivation to see something through becomes “there’s nothing you can do that I can’t,” even within stark physiological differences. The animals of the island take notice and our unorthodox family unit earns their respect, just in time for more Universal Dynamics ships arrive on the island to forcefully retrieve their tracked and missing property.

One immediate sensory ingredient that seeps into you from The Wild Robot is the film’s heavenly music. The promising and jazz-influenced composer Kris Bowers has impressed ears across the likes of Origin, King Richard, and smash hit Netflix series Bridgerton. His soaring score here on his first animated project is melodic and powerful, and blends right into two original soundtrack submissions by country artist Maren Morris. Both musical components deserve proper awards consideration in the score and song categories this winter.

Along the same lines, viewers young and old will be endlessly impressed with the dazzling visual flair of The Wild Robot’s animation style. While digital power churns out the photorealistic CGI surfaces and environments, everything in the active foregrounds and matte-like backgrounds is given a brushed Bob Ross-esque texture of oil-painted imperfection by the Dreamworks Animation team under Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon director Chris Sanders. This striking aesthetic is lushly exotic while still technically vivid for the big screen.

Alas, all of that jaw-dropping and triumphant artistry stands firmly behind The Wild Robot’s stirring power to massage hearts and minds with virtuous messages and an ideal balance of jovial humor. Much like how the rustic wear-and-tear discolors, dents, and dulls our shiny mechanical proxy parent over time, the sheer fortitude and kindhearted selflessness permeating The Wild Robot grows on you like the speckled moss on Roz. The eat-or-be-eaten tension of the setting softens and improves itself to become a community of inter-species harmony in an intentionally parallel and aspirational way, matching the survival spirit of Peter Brown’s best-selling source novel, which has become a school classroom staple since its publication in 2016. Beyond the lessons already cited above, the wholesome and worthwhile chestnuts and takeaways for the target demographic of this movie are numerous and rich. When it’s all said and done, you’ll be blotting tissues against the corners of your eyes and have a new contender for the best animated film of 2024.