Lifestyle Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News. When a blockbuster movie that’s based on a New York Times best-selling book is released, the stakes are high before anyone even steps into the cinema.
This is the case - and then some - with DreamWorks Animation’s latest offering, The Wild Robot , a 2016 book that is the first in a much-loved trilogy by Peter Brown. Want more TV news? Sign up to Kidspot’s Talking TV newsletter for all the up-to-date news sent straight to your inbox. ‘The Wild Robot’ is like no other animated film.
Image: Supplied What "The Wild Robot" is about Just like the children’s novels, the film follows the adventures of a robot named ROZZUM unit 7134, or Roz for short (Lupita Nyong’o), who was thrown from a shipping vessel in a storm and landed on an island inhabited only by animals, and must learn to adapt to their unfamiliar surroundings. The first living creature Roz meets is an unhatched gosling whose family members were all killed in the storm. When the egg cracks, the adorable little bird that emerges immediately imprints on the robot as his mum, and she names him Brightbill (Kit Connor).
Roz, however, is not mum-material at all. She is a high-tech robot-of-the-future who is programmed to complete tasks such as housework and landscaping. Okay, well she has some practical skills handy for parenting but caring for the orphaned creature emotionally is something she cannot compute.
The proactive problem solving robot that she is, Roz seeks out the help of the other island’s creatures - such as Fink (Pedro Pascal), a sneaky but good hearted fox, and Pinktail (Catherine O'Hara), a wise opossum mum raising a large litter she can barely keep track of. RELATED: Best 80s movies to watch with your kids A "first-time" mum As one might expect, all the animals Roz meets won’t come near the thing they call “the monster”, but soon enough, her kind and generous personality shines through her metal exterior and this “first-time-mum” now has a village to help teach Brightbill the basics of being a goose: how to eat, swim and fly. Roz may be a robot but watching her mothering with enthusiasm and confusion with no experience or innate knowledge, taps deep into the insecurities and challenges that parents are so often faced with on their own journey raising little beings.
For a robot whose sole purpose is to complete a task, it is a complete shift as she soon learns that a mother’s work is never done. To do this successfully in her new environment, she needs to go wild and replace her pre-programming with actions and words from the heart . The latest school holiday blockbuster will have you bawling and hugging your kids for all the right reasons.
Image: Supplied An emotional rollercoaster To say The Wild Robot is an emotional rollercoaster would be the understatement of the year. I lost count how many times a heart-rending scene made my eyes overflow with pools of tears. The 10-year-old next to me, whom I’ve never seen become remotely emotional at the hands of a movie before, even leant over multiple times to let me know that ‘he felt like he might cry’.
Me too son, me too. The beautifully detailed imagery, the soaring music, and the empathy of the character’s voices draw feelings that most other animated movies fail to even scratch the surface. This is not a glitzy high-budget film that is meant to show off how far animation has come.
Instead, you feel like you are watching a moving painting, peeking a glimpse into a world that is so familiarly real yet fantastical at the same time. Seeing a talking robot speak to talking animals seems like the most natural thing in the world, and their kindness and humour - and sometimes frightening nature - make the film captivatingly entertaining from start to finish. Introducing our new podcast: Mum Club! Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.
RELATED: The movies that scared the bejeezus out of us as kids Rave reviews It’s no surprise The Wild Robot holds a perfect score of 100 percent on the film review site, Rotten Tomatoes. It truly deserves it. It’s a big call given the ending [insert SPOILER ALERT here] is not what we would expect if you didn’t know there were two more books in the series.
The final scene brings tears to the eyes once again and there are so many emotions that it lifts to the surface you have no idea if it’s because it’s a heartbreakingly bittersweet ending so rarely seen in animated films, or just so poignantly beautiful. Perhaps both. Either way, unconditional love wins in this wild adventure.
And that’s all that really matters. The Wild Robot, rated PG (mild themes and animated violence), is released through Universal Pictures Australia and is in cinemas now. More Coverage 'The Perfect Couple' is like the orgasm that never arrives Rebel Wylie Why are Disney's remakes too scary for kids? Laura Aubusson Originally published as The school holiday blockbuster that will have you bawling and hugging your kids More related stories Lifestyle ‘Causing delay?’ The truth about playing white noise to a baby Aussie paediatrician, Dr Golly, has weighed in on the controversial study that has claimed the "trendy" parenting technique is causing problems in speech development.
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