A gorgeous computer-generated cartoon with a human heart beating beneath its sleek, state-of-the-art surface, DreamWorks Animation’s “ The Wild Robot ” arrives at a time when the public seems more concerned than ever about being outsmarted by artificial intelligence. It’s somewhat ironic then that the movie, a lovely chosen-family fable adapted from the first book in Peter Brown’s open-ended series, features no human characters of consequence. Instead, “The Wild Robot” concerns an overzealous automaton named ROZZUM 7134 (or simply “Roz” for short), whose personality comes partly from Lupita Nyong’o and the rest from the artists at DWA.
Together with “How to Train Your Dragon” co-director Chris Sanders , they imbue this bot — basically, two spheres, four limbs and more tools than a Swiss Army knife — with maternal instincts and something that could pass for a soul. In the world of the film, however, the emotional independence that makes Roz unique will be identified as a liability by Universal Dynamics, the company that designed “her” to help paying customers with whatever task they may require. Basically, Rozim was engineered to be a people-pleaser.
So what is she supposed to do when she crash-lands on an uninhabited island with no one to serve? Technically, the hunk of rock where “The Wild Robot” takes place is anything but uninhabited: It’s teeming with life, from the crabs that teach Roz to scale cliffs in the film’s opening minutes .