The Wild Robot

⭐ 8/10

This was a solid movie, animated beautifully and uniquely. I even laughed a couple times, which is a treat for a movie that just really wants you to cry.  And cry I did - this movie is designed to hurt the hearts of parents, particularly mothers. And while the emotional center of the movie was solid, I kind of wish that was the whole movie.  The climax of that plotline is half way through the movie, and then it ends with a big battle.  The battle looked cool, and wasn't too drawn out, so that was nice.  But I did not understand the ending at all.  The fight this whole battle to prevent the robot from being taken, but then they win and she immediately calls another shuttle to come get her?! She says she needs to find her purpose, and then we see her at the end picking oranges or something with the rest of the robots?  Took all the emotional punch out of the movie for me, in what seemed to be setup for the sequel.

Don't get me wrong, the migration scene had me weeping, perfectly staged. But everything about a robot trying to understand that it is more than its programming is so played out, happens in every single movie with a robot. A goose thinking its a robot, on the other hand, is quite funny and cute, and I wish they played more with that.

While the animation was beautiful, another nit is how the fox was done.  Something about him looked less detailed than some of the other animals.  I'm sure the artists have an artistic reason for this, but I am not artist, let alone a creative person, and I found it distracting.

A fun watch that brought tears to my eyes but frustrated me in that I felt like it was trying to do too much.  Speaking of doing too much, maybe its been too long since my last Dreamworks movie, but what is this crappy Marvel-style intro, showing us all their existing characters. Instead of trying to win us over with nostalgia just give us a good unique movie, like this!