Here’s the premise: After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. Roz is working to communicate with the wildlife to “complete her mission” while the animals don’t know what to think about the stranger that has invaded their territory.
Adapted from Peter Brown’s bestselling novel of the same name, Director/Writer Chris Sanders does a great job bringing this book to life. The Wild robot is a fun adventure with humor, heart, and that sense of being a stranger in a new place just trying to survive. I saw Peter Brown had said that he drew a picture of a robot in a tree and then thought “what would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness.” Luckily for us, it became a book that then gave us this movie.
Actress Lupita Nyong’o leads the cast as Roz, along with a fantastic cast that include Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Ving Rhames, and Catherine O;Hare. The story is absolutely brilliant and captivating, you can feel the tensions of the curious animals as they try to figure out this odd stranger. As the film comes together, it feels like a metaphor for our lives now; basically saying “we may be strangers and different, but we can still get along and help each other. Hopefully as audiences see this, they will get the same message and we can all come out better people for it. I’m not saying the movie is preachy by any means, just that in simple things in life, we can sometimes receive great advice.
I highly recommend this movie, take your kids, they will love it. I believe this will join the ranks of many classics and be remembered and watched over and over again for a long long time.
Russell Lockhart
