The Wild Robot - Review: The Best Film DreamWorks Animation Has Ever Made

 

In October of 2023, it was publicly announced that “The Wild Robot” would be the last film animated in-house at DreamWorks, with all subsequent films being animated by outside studios with the internal teams being shut down. This is not uncommon in the industry, but for a studio that’s been around for 30 years, this is monumental. It’s as if Disney or Pixar or Studio Ghibli announced they would no longer be animating their own animated movies going forward. It’s a massive blow to the animation industry, and an unfortunate result of nothing but pure cost cutting measures from corporate board members and studio CEOs. It’s also unfortunate because this very human tale of a robot is without a doubt the best film to ever bear the studio’s name. 

The film follows a ROZZUM unit, also known as Roz, voiced by Lupita Nyong’o (“Us (2019),” “12 Years a Slave”) who finds herself stuck on an island inhabited entirely by animals. After befriending some of them, such as a Fox named Fink, voiced by Pedro Pascall (“The Last of Us (2023),” “The Mandalorian”), Roz finds herself raising a runt gosling named Brightbill, voiced by Kit Connor (“Heartstopper,” “Rocket’s Island”), and attempting to prepare him for his winter migration. The film’s ensemble cast also consists of Catherine O’Hara (“Beetlejuice,” “Schitt’s Creek”) as Pinktail the opossum, Bill Nighy (“Love Actually,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest”) as Longneck the goose, Matt Berry (“What We Do In The Shadows (2019),” “Garth Marenghi's Darkplace”) as Paddler the beaver, and Ving Rhames (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” “Lilo & Stitch”) as Thunderbolt the falcon. 

Writer/director Chris Sanders (“How To Train Your Dragon,” “Lilo & Stitch”) has many years of experience working with animated tales filled with big emotions, and his work here is no exception. Roz’s tale of parenthood and naturalistic love is explored with thoughtfulness and maturity, without betraying its ease of understanding. It manages to be easily digestible without dumbing things down or coddling its audience. There are often frank discussions involving death throughout the film, without ever lingering on them or brushing too fast past them. It all builds to a film that feels remarkably adult and mature, without being crude or immature. Even the way Roz emotes has an added layer to it, forgoing giant eyebrows, a mouth, or other facial features for simple eyes and colors, all backed by her fantastical vocal performance. 

It all results in a kind of film that invites you in, enveloping you in its tale. At barely over 100 minutes, its scope and pacing feel like it tells a grand and massive tale, without ever dragging or overstaying its welcome. It leaves you with just enough, making you want slightly more but not feeling unfulfilled or underdeveloped. It’s even, somehow, almost devoid of pop culture references and poop jokes, a rarity in almost any kind of animated film nowadays. 

Nyong’o’s vocal performance is absolutely phenomenal, one packed with nuance and an evolution throughout the film. You can actively hear her inflections and nuances change as her character shifts and evolves in her new naturalistic home. Even if that change wasn’t as pronounced, her emotion and performance helps to craft Roz’s emotional journey in a fantastic way, helping to quite literally bring the character to life in a way as immediately iconic as the likes of Tom Hanks as Woody or Mike Myers as Shrek. The rest of the cast is just as good, coming across as legitimate voice acting talent, rather than celebrity voice acting stunt casts. Pascal and Connor in particular match Nyong’o’s emotional journey fantastically, and small performances from Nighy and Rhames make big impacts thanks to the strength of the casting and voices matching their characters. 

There’s a brush stroke, watercolor aesthetic to the world and animation that bring the world to life in a painterly way. It isn’t just a gorgeous look for the film, but it showcases the animal and naturalistic world in a the continues to bring it all to life. The hard metal design of Roz mixes with the world of these animals in a fascinating way, and the musical score from Kris Bowers (“Bridgerton,” “King Richard”) brings these two worlds together by fusing an orchestral score with the electronic beats inspired by Roz’s presence. 

But there’s also something here, beneath the surface, something “in the sauce” as the kids say, that sets the film apart that feels borderline unexplainable. “The Wild Robot” has that immediately timeless feeling that allows virtually anyone of any age to sit down and enjoy it to its fullest. It practically dares you not to fall in love with Roz, Brightbill, Fink, and the rest of this island. Each of the film’s individual elements build to something that is more than the sum of its already fantastic parts, and it's no hyperbole to describe the film as one of DreamWork’s best films ever, if not the best it’s ever made. 

“The Wild Robot” is a spectacle of visual beauty and deep, gorgeous emotions. Sanders has delivered a film that feels like a mission statement on the kind of universal storytelling animation can create. With his fantastic voice cast, including a career best (live action or animated) from Lupita Nyong’o, breathe life into a heart wrenching and truly spectacular tale of family, love, nature, and emotion that stakes its claim as one of the best films of the year. If this truly ends up being the final film made internally at DreamWorks, then it goes out as one of the best, possibly the best, films the studio has ever made. 5/5