I believe this is the first DreamWorks animated film we’ve seen in a very long while as the revamped studio title card stood out for me. I added this to my list as I’ve heard about the successful children’s book series it was adapted from and it does have great reviews. Initial impressions were great due to its vibrant visuals and watercolor-based art style. But the writing is nothing special at all, being an updated version of the standard mother-child bonding story. Mind you, it’s not a bad execution at all but it doesn’t deserve its rave reviews and it’s very much a film aimed only at children.

An advanced robot designated Unit 7134 activates on an uninhabited island. Intended for use in households, it seeks out tasks to perform but finds only animals that are frightened of it. The robot adapts to the situation by learning to communicate with the animals but is still shunned or attacked. While fleeing an aggressive grizzly bear, the robot now nicknamed Roz accidentally crushes a goose nest, killing the entire family except for a single egg. It then protects the egg from a hungry fox Fink until it hatches. The resulting gosling imprints himself on Roz, considering it his mother. An opossum mother tells Roz that it is in charge of the gosling now and must ensure that he is fed and can learn to swim and fly well enough before the winter migration. Fink takes advantage by manipulating Roz to get him food and shelter but eventually takes on a fatherly role. Roz names the gosling Brightbill and has to learn how to his mother while also struggling with what its purpose is.

The visuals are outstanding and instantly pop out. It’s the work of a studio with a big budget and a bold art style, allowing them to cram the entire screen with vibrant colors. As much as I love KPop Demon Hunters for example, it is unable to match the sheer spectacle of a bigger film like this. Unfortunately that is the only thing it does better as it is markedly inferior in all other aspects. It must have spent a great deal of money on big name voice actors as well but I’m not sure that makes much of an improvement in characterization. The main issue is that The Wild Robot, in keeping with its source material, is very much a children’s movie. The lessons it wants to teach, its tropes and the simplicity of its plot are all geared to appeal to children, so there’s not much there for adults. I do appreciate that it doesn’t completely shy away from the topic of death, as Roz does inadvertently kill Brightbill’s birth family at the beginning and it acknowledges that carnivore animals kill and eat prey. But it’s still a show about sapient animals who behave like humans and so presents a very innocuous version of the ecosystem and the cycle of life.

One observation of mine is that the Earth depicted here seems to be a technological utopia, for humans anyway. The few humans that are shown aren’t particularly malicious so the antagonists are other robots who are too aggressive about recovering Roz. I was worried that this was going to end in the humans discovering and destroying this untouched paradise island but this film is so kid-friendly that it never even considers that possibility. It goes without saying how unrealistic it is for the robots to be able to learn to speak to animals yet so stupid that it doesn’t immediately realize it is among animals. Or that it can spontaneously develop a heart and feel emotions.

So this might be pretty, but it’s too simple and kid-oriented for adults to properly enjoy. To the team’s credit, they retell the mother-child bonding story with the usual tropes, but mix it up enough that it’s not overly similar to anything that has already been made. To us, it feels too familiar but this might well be someone’s first encounter with such a story and every generation is entitled to their own version of it.