The Wild Robot is an animated film based on the book series by Peter Brown. Directed (and written) by Chris Sanders, it’s a fine family film with something for everyone. ROZZUM unit 7134 ( Lupita Nyong’o ) washes up on the shore of a deserted Northern Pacific island and, seeking tasks, accidentally becomes a parent to an orphaned gosling she names Brightbill (Kit Connor).
Helping the robot (now called Roz) is the fox Fink ( Pedro Pascal ) who teaches her whatever she needs to know in exchange for some creature comforts only the sophisticated machine can provide. When Roz first arrives, she cannot understand the local wildlife, but through a time-lapse “learning mode” sequence, the wordless creatures gradually take on the voices of American celebrities. The lack of dialogue in the first few minutes of the film makes you wonder if you’re in for something as transcendent as the opening of the Pixar classic Wall-E, but the sudden lapse into modern speech is only a disappointment for a few seconds.
There’s just a little of that DreamWorks post-modern smarminess but, overall, the dialogue only helps to establish more complex character motivations. The world and its inhabitants are so richly drawn that there’s really very little to complain about at all in terms of tension-lancing self-awareness. It’s possible there is an even more interesting version of this story with no dialogue at all, but what we get is more than good enough.
Where it really cannot be faulted is.