This afternoon I went to the cinema with a friend for a matinee showing of Wild Robot. It turned out to be the children’s screen: there was a (now-defunct) ball pit down front, the seats were shaped foam sofas on the floor, and there was a slide running down the side. There were two other children, with a parent each, and that was it. All in all quite a nice arrangement, as I found the seats very comfortable and they left a surprising amount of leg room so I could straighten my legs.
The film itself was very beautiful, with a painted feel to it rather than the CGI rendered stuff that I don’t really care for, and had some beautiful ambitious shots that were worth seeing on the big screen. The story and script were average at best, with far too much moralising for my taste (such as a storyline about animals giving up their Hobbesian nature under robot influence which was then articulated in a particularly tooth-aching way) and the different story elements didn’t hang together all that well. A beautiful scene that suddenly propelled you into the far future, of the Golden Gate Bridge underwater, with whales swimming over it. And from the biodiversity of all of this, it was odd to go to what was clearly meant to be an optimistic take on the future, of a factory farm powered by robots. Not very optimistic to one whose work is not pro-factory-farming.
The robot was voiced by Lupita Nyong’o and started off sounding like an air safety video. It is a shame that Nyong’o seems to get so many roles in which she is not visible, from Star Wars to this, given that she is both a very good actress and a good-looking woman. I did start mulling during the film on the sub-genre of films about robots and other slave-like creatures in American cinema and their loyal, nurturing personae. Is this unique to US cinema? Not sure, I haven’t seen enough anime, for instance, to tell.
The animals were, again, beautifully animated though their voices were jarring – some too recognisable, many inexplicably British, and the various cubs and pups and chicks with particularly irritating American kid voices.
The person I went with is an aspiring animator, and was very inspired and I think saw fewer flaws in the film over all than I did. But I’m a notorious grump, and never more so than when it comes to American film.