The Wild Robot

Beautiful! There were at least 3 instances that made me teary eyed. You'll find wisdom tidbits. :)

The Wild Robot has some beautiful messages on found family and believing in a better version of ourselves all packaged in a beautiful and heartwarming tale of sci-fi and nature. The voice acting is top notch from celebrities who were well cast and fit their characters perfectly. The movie also has some great and expressive characters, despite a lot of them feeling like real animals with mostly realistic proportions and movements, the film is able to inject a careful balance of expressiveness and authenticity that I appreciated. The animation, blending 3D and 2D styles, was gorgeous. One of the many things I disliked about Pixar's The Good Dinosaur was the detailed computer animated forest environment blending terribly with the overly cartoonish character design. In The Wild Robot, the forest is perfectly rendered in this painterly style that not only perfectly suited the character design but made the nature all the more alive and beautiful. Sometimes realistic isn't what captures the beauty of nature. The cast of animals characters in the forest were very memorable and provided plenty of genuine character-driven laughs. Some of which have little more edge then you're typical family film. The film leans into the reality of nature and the circle of life more often then not to great effect, the reality of death isn’t shied away from. A decision which made the film feel very mature with a tone that had more bite. The stakes were set high immediately in the opening of the film, starting of with wonder and fish-out-of-water comedy transitioning seamlessly into a much more darker and serious tone. It was very commendable that this film didn't feel all that sanitized for the sake of kids for the most part. The story and messaging is all very well handled, towards the end it got a little cheesy as character began stating the message of the film outright, but I would also argue that the film earned every emotion and opportunity to make the points that it was trying to make by the end.  The film was also extremely well-paced and kept the laughs and heartfelt moments genuine and earned. I wouldn't be lying if I said I didn’t teared up, thanks to a genuinely heartfelt tale of an accidental motherhood set to a beautiful and triumphant score. I also love how they handled the subtle environmental message, plenty of kids would learn to appreciate the wonder and harmony of nature without it being beaten over-the-head. One of Dreamwork's best for sure, feels like the best of Pixar.