AND THEN THE ACTUAL TRAILER COMES OUT. AND EVERYTHING WAS FUCKING. TALKING. THE ANIMALS. THE ROBOT. EVERYTHING. Roan there was like 8 actor names at the end of the teaser what ever you expecting? I don't know Buggnutz, maybe there would be some scientists and they would talk for one or two lines. INSTEAD THEY ARE THE ONLY THINGS THAT DON'T FUCKING TALK IN THIS GODDAMN MOVIE.
What's This Movie About?
A robot that was lost in a typhoon washes up on the shore of an island full of animals, and in leu of finding a purpose she must raise a baby goose.
What I Like.
This movie is absolutely gorgeous. It's the same CG but with painted edges style that Puss In Boots: The Last Wish had. I think there was even a part that was stop motion, I'm not sure but is was incredibly pretty. The action is pretty cool too. They do a good job showcasing calamity without losing track of what is happening or who we are following. The music, as well, is incredibly beautiful. It's almost as if the people who made the teaser trailer knew that these elements of the movie are the best and showing anything else from the movie would give away how bad it is. Roan...
A few other things I begrudgingly admit were good: The designs of all the robots and the future human cities were cool. I like that the robot can adjust her body to mimic different things and complete tasks. The hints of a post-post-apocalyptic future were neat. The baby animals were cute. The scene where the goose leave to migrate almost made me tear up. (You cried? ALMOST.) The voice acting, despite being another showcase of big names, is actually good and I feel like the actors became their characters. I liked it when the robot got beat up by the animals.
What I Didn't Like.
I hate every piece of dialogue spoken in this movie. Roan. NO. EVERY LINE SUCKS. IT'S EITHER PERFUNCTORY OR CLICHED. The lines that are expository are unnecessary and could or are communicated by the actions of the characters or the expressions of their faces. They only thing that would be missing from the movie if you removed all the dialogue is Dreamworks jokes. Y'know, the ones that go over the kid's head because they are for the parent? Well this movie has the worst Dreamworks jokes I've heard. Literally one of them is just a character saying "Male bovine excrement." The only context of that being funny is if you imagine the scriptwriter wanting to put the world "bullshit" in the script but someone telling him no. And we know that didn't happen!
Of course, taking out all the dialogue in the movie wouldn't save it, because the plot is bad. It's incredibly faithful to the book. Well the book is bad too. The structure is borked and pacing is whack, but my main issue is the tone. See, the movie for most of the run time is incredibly cynical. Not unjustifiably so I would say. All the animals are aggressive because either a) they are predators and need to eat, or b) they are prey animals and need to not get eaten. But at the same time, it's got a happy-clappy "And then all the animals in the forest got together and held hands" moral which just isn't compatible with the realistic "some animals just gotta eat other animals to live" part of the story. Am I supposed to assume that some prey animals willingly give up their lives so that the predators can eat. No, you're supposed to not think about it because it's A TALKING ANIMAL MOVIE. THEN WHY EXPLICITLY BRING UP THE FACT THAT PREDATORS EAT OTHER ANIMALS TO LIVE? FOCUS ON THE MOTHER-SON DYNAMIC OF THE ROBOT AND THE GOOSE! WHY? I DON'T KNOW EITHER OF THEM AS CHARACTERS! The robot is just tricked into following dumb programming until suddenly it isn't, with almost no build up and ABSOLUTELY no explanation beyond "it's the power of love!". The only thing I remember about the goose is that he was gonna get killed by his biological mom. That's one of the things in this movie that just rubs me the wrong way, and I don't know if this is just me way over-analyzing or misinterpreting something, but I guess I'm gonna clutch my pearls over a scene which implies killing a mother to save a baby is a morally correct thing to do.
Naturally, this movie does commit my cardinal sin of immediately backtracking a horrible fate to pull a happy ending out of its ass. They actually do it twice. The robot goes through a memory-wiping process and forgets her goose son, but it's okay because one hug from him restores it for no reason except love I guess. Love makes the world go round dude. But they don't even use the memory wipe for drama. WALL-E, which I remind you is one of the best kids movies if not movies ever, does almost exactly the same thing. (That not even a the only scene this movie basically steals from better kids movies either. The opening of Migration is copy pasted into the middle of this movie.) The main character who is a robot sacrifices themselves and loses their memory, causing distress for a loved one but an act of physical intimacy brings them restores it. But in WALL-E, the titular character goes about a drone life. He starts destroying the interesting trash he once collected. He doesn't recognize EVE. You feel a wrench of emotion before EVE gives him what she thinks is one final kiss and the happy ending plays. In this the robot says like one robot-y thing and then the goose hugs her and she back yaaaay. The second time is after the finale. The robot decides she need to return to her creators to protect the forest (which they even acknowledge in the movie and book is stupid because why did they waste their time fighting off the evil robots that came to take her away in the first place, but go off.) and she flies away in the robot ship. Now to the book's credit, it ends there. The robot contemplates her future and it's kind of a downer ending. BUT THAT'S TOO SAD FOR A KIDS MOVIE, so in the end the goose has to find the rebuilt and somehow not reprogrammed robot living in the human city and they hug again. Yeah god forbid a kid feels an emotion that isn't joy, or take the time to consider different aspects of their life with a thought provoking story.
Final Summation.
ROAN, SIT THE HELL DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP. The Wild Robot is a fine kids movie. Just because you're feeling cranky and are mad that the movie isn't what you wanted it to be DOESN'T MEAN IT'S BAD. Stamp it a recommendation, and MOVE. ON. Fuck you. WHAT WAS THAT YOU LITTLE BITCH? I said FUCK YOU. This movie is BAD. Not because it wasn't what I wanted it to be, but because it is a BAD. MOVIE. The Wild Robot has the same issue as Harold and the Purple Crayon, where it tries to grasp at higher concepts but falls short. But unlike that movie which was done out of a sense of obligation, it feels like the writers just don't trust kids to engage with deeper topics in a more critical way. Which is FUCKING NONSENSE. THEY DESERVE BETTER. Kids are much smarter and emotionally wiser than the creators of this movie would ever give them credit, and kids movie-makers should give them their FUCKING RESPECT.
DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. ...I just need something to distract my kids. THEN WATCH TRANSFORMERS ONE. That movie has robots and a plot that is actually worth a damn, plus your kids will actually learn something important.
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