Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, in collaboration with the non-profit Dove Foundation, has repackaged some of its back catalogue to work with the Foundation's desire to promote family-friendly entertainment.
Fox and Blue Sky Animation (Ice Age, Horton Hears a Who) have repackaged their 2005 flick Robots to carry the Dove Foundation's "Family Approved" seal, meaning that all ages can view this flick without any worries.
This DVD is also packaged in a two-fer with Little Robots: Reach for the Sky (click the link for a review).
Twentieth Century Fox/Blue Sky's Robots Stars Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams
The film follows plucky young robot Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) who wants to meet his hero, kindly business magnate Bigweld (Mel Brooks), and demonstrate his invention, a tiny robot that does an unspecified amount of things, including faint a lot. However, when Rodney hits the big city, he swiftly realizes that things aren't quite what he thought. Cue some kind-hearted but rascally robots (Robin Williams, Amanda Bynes) who help him become a success, plus some dastardly corporate villains to oppose our hero's scheme.
Robots is a prime example of what happens when you get a cool concept but don't have a story. The plot is basically there to move the film from one spectacular set-piece to another: great visual eye candy but empty calories.
The story (such as it is) is a feel-good tale of a boy from a small town who chases his dreams and makes good. But the central characters feel underwritten and many of the supporting cast are one-joke caricatures (no prizes for guessing what Aunt Fanny's biggest feature is).
Add a few deus ex machina moments where central characters show up at convenient times to deliver either a stirring speech or pull the heroes out of trouble, and zero chemistry between Rodney and his paint-by-numbers love interest (Halle Berry, who phones in her role) and this movie provokes more eye rolls than laughs. It doesn't help that several of the jokes haven't aged well since the film's 2005 release.
Another major problem with Robots comes from the misapprehension that seems to plague the vast majority of animated studios other than Pixar: that top Hollywood stars make great voice actors. When animator Mark Walton steals Bolt out from under established stars like John Travolta or Miley Cyrus, you'd think other Hollywood studios would get the hint. However, they still think the star system that drives live-action box office also applies to animation.
McGregor and Berry are both excellent actors, but they're unable to use their voices to compensate for the fact that they can't use their faces and bodies to convey a line. That makes the central characters pale even further next to the supporting cast, made up of mostly professional voice actors.
Robin Williams is his usual screwball self but his madcap improvisations occasionally get in the way of the plot flow. It's clear the filmmakers were laughing too hard at what he was coming up with to think about how it would actually work within the final product.
DVD Extras
Fox and Blue Sky really loaded up the extras for this flick. There's the short "Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty" which suffers from a severe lack of funny, while the audio commentary by director Chris Wedge and Production Designer William Joyce is extensive but not terribly compelling, as is the technical commentary. The commentary for the deleted scenes confirm the theory that the filmmakers were really making things up as they went along.
The "You Can Shine Whatever You're Made of" featurette is more interesting for what it doesn't talk about. The crew discuss the inspiration behind the characters and the world they created, but nothing about what they were trying to say with this film. There's also a featurette depicting the Blue Man Group working on the film's soundtrack, and the original short that inspired the movie, plus many more games and interactive features.
The Final Analysis
This film is emblematic of the main problems with Hollywood animated films: great visuals trump compelling story, and that big stars can properly headline animated films.
Yes, Robots is family-approved entertainment, but that doesn't mean it's any good.It gets a 5/10, mainly for the visuals.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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