The Wild Robot

Lumpy and ungainly storytelling choices makes this ultimately emotionally manipulative story difficult to fully embrace – nicely styled in terms of animation, with the expected CGI effects complemented by a slightly rougher, hand-drawn feel that was an endearing call-back to more traditional animation; the big problem is the plot is an awkward cobble-together of familiar material (elements of BAMBI crashing into Spielberg’s AI, and even a dose of WALL-E) which makes its overall arc predictable, and the (overly) emotional beats difficult to find organically moving. A fun voice cast does their best; it’s nice to see O’Hara gradually becoming a vocal spit for Lily Tomlin!