A robot becomes a surrogate mother for a gosling on an uninhabited island in The Wild Robot. ROZZUM unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o), or Roz for short, is a helper robot that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. After learning to communicate with the local wildlife, Roz tries to find a task to complete, though most of the animals view her as a monster. After accidentally killing a goose and most of its eggs, Roz saves the final egg from the hungry fox Fink (Pedro Pascal), which hatches into a gosling runt she names Brightbill (Kit Connor). With the help of Fink and the possum Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), Roz is given the task to raise Brightbill, so he can join the goose migration in the winter.
The Wild Robot Synopsis
The Wild Robot is an animated adventure written and directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), based on the children’s novel of the same name by Peter Brown. Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther) voices the titular robot Roz, who wakes up after she is shipwrecked of the coast of an island. Created by a company named Universal Dynamic, Roz’s programming states that she must complete tasks or else return to the factory.
After a freshly hatched gosling begins following Roz around, she is told by the possum Pinktail, voiced by Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), encourages Roz to be a mother to the gosling, with her task being to teach the skill required for migration. Roz is assisted in this task by the Fox Fink, voiced by Pedro Pascal (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent), who claims to be a goose expert. Roz has to override her programming to take care of Brightbill, with her motherly attachment to him steadily growing.
My Thoughts on The Wild Robot
The Wild Robot is the latest animated film from Dreamworks Animation, with three time Oscar-nominated director Chris Sanders at the helm. The Wild Robot is sure to lead to a fourth nomination and quite possibly a win, as the film is an emotional masterpiece of an animated adventure. The film is able to pull on the right heartstrings, with its story that is ultimately all about the unconditional love of motherhood.
The Wild Robot has a quite stacked voice cast led by Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, and Kit Connor. The supporting voices include Ving Rhames as Eagle flight instructor Thunderbolt, Mark Hamill as the grumpy bear Thorn, and Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows) as the beaver Paddler. The Wild Robot also features Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), as the voice of Vontra, an antagonistic robot that turns up in the third act.
The Wild Robot is undoubtedly the best animated film from Dreamworks since their heyday of the Shrek and How to Train a Dragon films. This is likely do to the fact that they brought How to Train a Dragon‘s director Chris Sanders back to direct. And with The Wild Robot being based on a series of novels, it is almost guaranteed that Dreamworks now has a new franchise on their hands.
