Review: Robots

IMDB Info

20^th Century Fox was hugely successful in the month of April with Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha’s Robots, which takes place in a world composed entirely of personified machinery. As I first immersed myself in the picture, I was amazed by its detailed, intricate, colorful cityscapes and characters. In fact, throughout its entirety, I couldn’t help but admire the complex, layered beauty of the extensive CGI, especially during the scenes which featured aerial shots of the Wizard of Oz­-esque “Robot City” and those containing a supporting-character surfing on humongous waves comprised of thousands of dominos. Unfortunately, the visuals only provided me with what I like to call a “movie-high” for so long. Whenever the greatness of the images seemed a usual characteristic of the film to me, I looked to the story for entertainment. In this area, Robots comes up far short of adequate, as it follows a very basic, conventional fish-out-of-water formula, borrowing from just about every other movie in its genre. The finale, which experiences the same fate as the barely-better Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, is particularly unbearable, simply because of its overbearingly giddy, clichéd feel. Not even the terrific, expressive voice-cast—which includes Robin Williams, Drew Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Amanda Bynes, and Halle Berry—can liven up the dullness of the narrative arc. The amount one enjoys Robots will depend entirely on how long and how much its appearance is able to impress them.