This week, robots get a win. I won’t say this never happens, but the age of AI has not been kind to non-living entities. We are in the era of sentient Terminators, hence it’s a welcome relief to get the occasional R2D2. And this metal entity isn’t just an assistant. The Wild Robot is the protagonist.
The setting is a forgotten island in the middle of the ocean in the not-too-distant future. The island is not tropical; it knows winter. The living inhabitants are all animals. One accidently turns on a ROZZUM robot, accidentally washed up on shore. The crate suggests the robot was being shipped when something went wrong. We see the robot’s adaptation qualities instantly as it forms claw hands to scale rocks like the crabs it witnesses. The robot needs to serve, but only manages to scare the animals it encounters. Luckily, this is a pretty advanced robot; it programs itself to learn the language of the animals and quickly starts communicating with the mammals and birds on the island.
ROZZUM or Roz (voice of Lupita Nyong’o) needs an objective and finds a bear. It was a hairy bear; it was a scary bear; Roz made so hasty a retreat from its lair that our hero destroys a clutch of goose eggs, leaving only a single one, which is immediately stolen by a hungry fox, Fink (Pedro Pascal).
Advanced robots are pretty good a tracking, it turns out. Roz saves the egg, which hatches and the gosling that emerges imprints on Roz. Uh oh. Well, you sure got your objective now, doncha? It’s funny how this film assigns very human attributes to Roz, like guilt, indecisiveness, and reflection. We all know the robot agenda – Roz is going to teach a goose how to be a goose- but 
we get there first, which is a neat trick given the being on screen can calculate pi to a million places, which most humans … cannot.
It is funny how simple and almost condescending the plot is. If I told you flat out: “a robot raises a goose,” would that grab your attention? I doubt it. But the details here are rich – the robot first has to learn how to be a goose and then how to parent so it can be a mother goose. And as guides, Roz has little more than a friend-challenged fox, a mother opossum (Catherine O’Hara), and a forest of creatures who fear the darn thing.
The Wild Robot is a true joy. Does it cheat and give the robot perhaps a more human outlook than it ought to have? Sure. But who’s to say exactly when this story takes place and why can’t robots necessarily be like that in the future? This movie lauds parenthood and parental responsibility like few before it. And there’s nothing shallow, dull, or necessarily feminine about any of it. I eyeroll so often at mediocre family film that sometimes I fear I won’t recognize when a good one comes along. This is a good one. A really, really good one. Is it How to Train Your Dragon good? Let’s not be silly here. But it’s closer to that than any other animated film that has come out in at least the last year or two.
There was once a robot named Roz
Stuck stranded on her own island Oz
In need of objective
Took up a directive
Making motherhood a primary cause
Rated PG, 102 Minutes
Director: Chris Sanders
Writer: Chris Sanders, Peter Brown
Genre: Tech support gone rogue
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anyone who understands the power of nurturing behavior
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Robots don’t have feelings”
