The Wild Robot (2024) Review

The Wild Robot (2024) Review 

Dreamworks' latest film hit theaters this past weekend with The Wild Robot. I’m of the generation that Dreamworks helped define my generation, they’ve made so many fantastic movies that I love. Is this another great Dreamworks movie? Or was this a disappointing film that didn’t quite work for me? Let’s talk about it!

NOTE: There’s a couple of things I wanted to talk about in this review, but don’t really affect my thoughts on the movie. They’re things I wanted to talk about.

1. I know this movie is based on books, but I haven't read the books. My sisters have read the books and were very excited for this movie. I watched it as a film and animation film, not a fan of the books. 

2. There is a little bit of harm to animals in this movie. Without spoiling anything the basic set-up does involve some animals getting killed. Other animals do get injured throughout it. You don’t see any of this, but it’s certainly in there and if that’s sensitive to you or somebody in your family, keep that in mind. 

The Good

I’m just going to cut right to the chase, I thought this movie was fantastic, I loved it. Like I said, Dreamworks is one of those movie brands that people my age grew up with. Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and more were franchises that defined our childhoods. I’ve seen several Dreamworks movies in the past that I thought were the best Dreamworks movies in years. Probably since How to Train Your Dragon 2 which came out in 2014. This movie made me feel so many emotions. You like the character, it’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and it’s exciting. It’s one of those movies that everybody can enjoy and have fun with. The theater I was in had a lot of kids in it, it seemed like all of them were having a really good time with it. My grandparents went to see it, they seemed to enjoy it. It’s a movie that’s for everybody to enjoy and have a good time with it. 2024 is shaping out to be a fantastic year for animation, September is oddly the year of great animation robot movies. Come awards season, I’m very interested to see if this or Inside Out 2 will win more awards. 

As for the specifics about the movie, the thing that really worked for me was its central story. The trailers market it as a robot making friends with animals in the wild, a movie that’ll be very easy for kids to love and appreciate. But I don’t think the movie did the best job of capturing what the movie is actually about. It’s about parenting, the robot in the movie is a parent towards this little bird and you see their journey from learning to being this mother and son and all of the emotions that come with that. Since it’s also a movie about a robot in the wild there’s a lot of fun that comes with that. You get emotional moments, funny moments, hopeful moments, moments of victory, thrilling moments. The third act does have some action inside of it. With the way the story plays out it allows for different things to happen and be a lot of fun. 

It’s a movie that tackles these ideas of letting go, growing up, and finding your place in the world and it’s packaged using this relationship between a robot and a bird that feels real and like a relationship that you might actually know. For me, this is the most Pixar-like Dreamworks movie, because it’s a movie that’s tackling ideas that both kids and parents can understand. That’s what made Pixar legendary for years, because they tapped into ideas that people of all ages can understand. Dreamworks certainly has emotional moments in their movies, but not like this. I wish Dreamworks did more movies like this, movies that make you feel a whole lot of different emotions. Movies that depending on how old you are, your stage of life you can get something out of it. Of the movies in 2024, this is probably the movie that made me feel the most. Every year we get that one movie that makes you feel a whole lot of different emotions. Unless there’s something else coming in the rest of the year, The Wild Robot will be that movie of 2024. I’m not somebody that normally cries in movies, I might feel emotions, maybe I get misty eyed. This movie made a couple of tears go down my face and I don’t remember the last time that happened. For me personally, when a movie is able to emote those big emotions from you…you know you have something special. 

Another great thing about this movie is the animation style is simply fantastic. This is one of the most beautifully animated movies that I’ve seen recently. As I mentioned earlier, the movie was based off of a book and it felt like they took the pages of the book and plopped them onto the screen. Or they created this paintbrush that has this cool technology inside of it that allows you to paint and your painting is like animation, they took this footage and slipped it on the screen. It looks flawless no matter what you’re looking for, there's something beautiful to look at. So many images in this movie could be hung up in my room and it’ll be a piece of art. What’s so crazy about this movie is that it only costs $78 million and so many other animated movies, mainly Disney & Pixar do nothing interesting with the animation but costs $200 million. 

Also, the movie is really funny and it has a great sense of humor about it. Once again, I think it’s the right blend of humor for everybody to enjoy it. Dreamworks can sometimes do kiddy humor with fart and poop jokes, kids will laugh at it but adults will be annoyed. This movie had kids and adults laughing from beginning to end. What surprised me about the movie, it sometimes has some dark humor. Early on there’s a joke about a possum’s babies that is very dark, but is the joke in the movie that I laughed at the most. Was probably laughing for a solid 30 seconds after the joke ended. But there’s a lot more family friendly humor in it that also will get a chuckle out of you. 

One great aspect of this movie is that the voice cast is fantastic. Everybody in the movie does a great job and they do a great job of disappearing into their roles. There’s several A-list stars in here, but they do a great job of blending in. I’ve heard people say that they want Hollywood to hire great voice actors for movies, not A-list stars. People found it weird that Chris Hemsworth was voicing Optimus Prime and Chris Pratt was voicing Mario and Garfield. Here the actors do such a great job that you don’t care that it’s Pedro Pascal voicing a fox or Lupita Nyong’o voicing the reboot. Especially with Nyong’o, her voice sounds very robotic but not in a way that feels lifeless. You also have Mark Hamill voicing a bear in here. I heard he was in the movie but totally forgot that he was in the movie until the credits rolled. 

Finally, the score of the movie is fantastic. This movie is certainly a lock for best animated feature at the Oscars and other award ceremonies. I hope the score also gets some nominations, because it’s one of the best scores of the year. There’s some great pieces of music in here that elevate the scenes. They make you feel the right emotions that you’re supposed to feel. There’s even some songs in the movie, I would assume were written for this movie but they’re great songs that fit the tone of the movie. Both the score and the music reminded me of Brave, I have my issues with that movie but the soundtrack is good. 

The Bad

My only issue with this movie is that the movie has a The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King problem for me. What I mean by that is that the movie has about three different endings. Where it feels like it’s going to end then it keeps on going, you think it’s going to end…and it keeps on going. This movie has a little bit of that, it’s not that I have a problem with any of the scenes. I’m very happy with the scenes we got in the last 10-15 minutes of the movie and where it leaves off is fantastic. But I wish they found a way to not make it feel like it has multiple different end points in a row. That’s really it, that’s the only issue I had with this movie and even then that’s pretty small. 

Final Thoughts: I went into this movie somewhat excited, it wasn’t one I was super excited for. My excitement for the movie started to build once the early buzz for the movie was fantastic. This movie absolutely lives up the hype. It's just as good as everybody is saying it is. I don’t wanna spoil my ranking at the end of the year, this will most likely be in my top #3 of the year. If it’s not, then the last two months of 2024 will be fantastic. 

The Score: 9.4/10 (A)