This film has more than enough feathers, fur, and metal characters for all ages to love. This film shares relatable messages for the family with vibrant animated characters and exquisite backgrounds. As in the most successful animated movies, DreamWorks creates vibrant animation with a heartfelt, well-structured and engaging story voiced by a great cast on a level with masterworks WALL-E and The Iron Giant.
It is based on Peter Brown’s bestselling book of the same name that spins a tale linking technology and nature he co-wrote with Director Chris Sanders. Sanders has helmed such iconic animated achievements including Dreamworks, How to Train Your Dragon and Disney’s Lilo & Stitch for which he voiced the Koala-like alien. This is Kris Bowers’ first foray writing the score for animation and he tied certain types of music to go along with some of the characters. For the wilderness, Bowers worked with a group called Sandbox Percussion that use glass household items, wood planks and even cowbell.
ROZZUM unit 7134, Roz for short, (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) is a lost robot who was programmed to be the ultimate personal assistant. Her mission is to complete whatever task is assigned. Roz fell out of the sky landing on an island where there appear to be no humans. But it’s lush with all kinds of beautiful flora and fauna. The first scenes show precious, playful otters, realistically and whimsically animated, encountering the alien metal intruder. Roz was only programmed to deal with humans and not with an array of creatures in their natural habitats.
When Roz finds a very small orb, it becomes the trajectory for the most important relationship driving the narrative. She helps hatch the egg and the emerging gosling imprints on the robot making Roz Mother of the adorable young goose, Brightbill. Their mutual attachment grows.
Like Roz, Lupin Nyong’o had to adjust to navigating her new tasks and setting. The actress could only user her voice to express the emotion of her character because robots can’t show facial expressions. Roz can only express herself with her voice and eyes. As Roz explores her new surroundings, she runs into beasts of all sizes including fox Fink (Pedro Pascal), Opossum Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), elder Longneck goose (Bill Nighy), and becomes friend and protector of the tiny, adorable gosling Brightbill (Kit Connor). Child actor, Boone Storm, provides the cute Baby voice for the little gosling. Roz has to figure out how to communicate with this menagerie. Lucky she has a universal language translation program.
You’ll also hear from more key characters, including Matt Berry as Paddler, a Brit accented beaver, Mark Hamill as big ferocious bear Thorn, and Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt, a peregrine falcon. It’s surprising to hear Marc Hamill and Ving Rhames play deep-voice dapex predators, while Lupito and Connor voice their parts with innocence, humor and compassion. Pascal does sly and sarcastic perfectly giving his dialogue texture.
Roz and smart ass Fox Fink along with the majestic Thunderbolt help teach little Brightbill, the little runt who beat the odds, to fly so he can join the other geese when they migrate South before winter. Roz has to learn a tough love lesson about parenting. You raise children to leave and go off on their own.
Roz wants to stay on the island, but the tentacled corporate robot Vontra (Stephanie Hsu) has other plans. She wants to take Roz away and restore her to factory settings, destroying the robot’s memories. The challenge is for Roz and her family of animal friends to survive a series of charged up animated action scenes. Roz ultimately finds the power of love and family over algorithms and programming. In this age of cynicism, it’s refreshing to see a vibrant, engaging story that unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve.
Universal Picture / Dreamworks 1 hour 41 minutes PG
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