The director of How to Train Your Dragon is back with another excellent animation

The Wild Robot ★★★★ (PG) 102 minutes The Wild Robot’s ROZZUM Unit 7134, otherwise known as Roz, is a descendant of some of cinema’s most benign robotic creations. C-3PO, R2-D2 and E.T.

have all brought something to her DNA. Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), Brightbill (Kit Connor) and Fink (Pedro Pascal) in a scene from The Wild Robot. Credit: 2024 DreamWorks Animation The word, “wild” just refers to her circumstances.

She’s been stranded on an island where her only companions are to be found among the wildlife sharing the island with her. Lonely? It could be – except that this is a DreamWorks movie and everybody speaks English in voices belonging to some of cinema’s most familiar actors. Bill Nighy lends his wry tone to an avuncular goose, Mark Hamill voices a grizzly bear, Catherine O’Hara does the same for a possum and The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal is heard as a cynical but friendly fox.

Already there are great claims for the film, which is based on Peter Brown’s bestselling children’s’ picture book. Its director, Chris Sanders ( How to Train Your Dragon ) began his career in hand-drawn animation and he hasn’t been holding back, citing both Monet and Miyazaki as influences on the film’s style. Its landscapes are certainly beautiful and while I didn’t detect any Monet moments, there are enough mountainous crags and towering pine groves to conjure up the work of Albert Bierstadt or the other Romantic painters of the American West.

To match all th.