The Wild Robot

After a shipwreck strands a robot on an island, it learns the true meaning of love while caring for an orphaned baby goose. 

Roz (short for Rozzum Unit 7134) washes ashore amongst the debris of her fellow robots, on a small forested island, after the cargo ship she was being transported on sunk. Unsure how she got there, who she is, or why she has even been activated, Roz begins to wander, looking for a task, as their serve-at-all-costs programming demands. Clumsy, unaware, and single-mindedly focused on her goal, Roz wrecks havoc across the island, and amongst its animal inhabitants, and eventually accidentally crushes a goose in her nest.

This is where Roz finds her purpose... to raise the only survivor of the nest, an orphaned newborn gosling that she names Brightbill.

Brightbill, not to be confused with Brightburn, is a little on the runty side, and like Roz, is a babe lost in the woods, literally and figuratively. Together–along a fox named Fink, a possum named Pinktail, a bear named Thorn, and a beaver named Paddler, Roz must work to not only keep Brightbill alive in the terrifying and often deadly environment that is nature, but they must also master the basics of being a goose, on land, sea, and air, before the freezing cold of winter arrives, or Brightbill won't live to see the next spring...

A familiar gag-a-minute series of pratfalls set amongst some seriously beautiful computer-generated animation, as the wacky anthropomorphized animals do their wacky and yet relatable stuff, the thing that most sets The Wild Robot apart is how unafraid it is to address the idea of death, as it walks a line between the adorable side of nature, and the side that will kill you.

I was impressed by that.

It's a pretty bold move to add sharp edges to your kids story, especially in this modern day era of children's entertainment, with its softly-padded sides, its slow and easy to understand underhand tosses, and its near-crippling fear of offending skittish parents who are more than ready to do violence at the drop of a hat.

That isn't to say that The Wild Robot has a bunch of gore or graphic violence or anything like that, but at multiple points in the movie, the story doesn't shy away from addressing more complex and emotionally fraught subjects, especially when it comes to the reality that is nature.

In addition to that, while the island does have a kind of Lost World feel to it, the specter of Climate Change is also always present, especially once the story ventures out into the Realm of Man, where we see the very sterile, very ordered, and sealed domes that make up the hydroponics system that humanity very clearly depends on, as evidenced by the ugly and toxic world outside of them. In this way, the film not only highlights the folly of humanity, and how their greed is destroying their world, but the danger that is posed by unchecked Corporate Kleptocracies as well. And by showing us this, as well as how dependant human society is on robots like Roz, and how clearly terrible their world truly is when compared to the community on the Island, it's such an obvious point that even a child won't miss it.

I appreciated this, because as the idiot tech Bros, with their stupid broccoli-head haircuts, continue to wreck the world, and the mediocre suburban assholes, with their Applebee dreams and their demands for immediate service, keep allowing it to happen, all while the billionaire robber barons continue to steal everything that isn't nailed down, while pushing their shitty spyware algorithms and idiot-bait AI plagiarism-machines on us, all so they can stop paying living wages to real people, the next generation is going to have to get ready to fight back much sooner.

So, hopefully kids see this, and begin to dream of guillotines...

That said, I'm not claiming The Wild Robot is all that revolutionary either. It's a cute cartoon. It's funny. It's sweet. But it's not really all that much else. It's mostly a candy-coated, easy-to-swallow, pretty familiar, and more than a little derivative, bit of fluff, and you'll definitely recognize where some of the pieces that make it up came from. But still, this story about parents and children–even if they are robots and geese and possums and a bear and a beaver–is fun and touching, and for the most part, it feels sincere. Most of all, I really liked how its central message is that kindness is a survival skill.

The Wild Robot is a cute and fun little time. Thumbs up.