Oscar Watcher: THE WILD ROBOT

The day draws ever closer. On March 3rd 2025, the red carpet shall ring with cries of “Who are you wearing?” as Hollywood’s greatest circlejerk begins. In preparation for this, Outposter Mhatt returns with his heroic journey through some of the rewards contenders this year. Oscar Watcher continues. This time – The Wild Robot.

The Wild Robot

Directed by: Chris Sanders. Written by: Chris Sanders, Peter Brown (book). Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill and Catherine O’Hara.

A service robot named Rozzum washes up on a remote island filled with various wild animals and learns valuable lessons about the nature of life.

‘Roz’ (Nyong’o) stumbles up onto the shores of a backwoods wilderness and struggles to reconcile her pre-programming to better understand and interact with the aloof and unwelcoming animal residents. After adopting a Gosling named Brightbill (Connor) she enlists a self-serving Fox named Fink (Pascal) to help her raise him into a self-reliant adult.

Along the way, she spars and bonds with a plucky Beaver named Paddler (Berry), an overextended Mother Opossum named Pinktail (O’Hara), and various other poorly developed creatures thanklessly played by famous actors.

Conflicts arise from Roz’s enthusiastic task-oriented machine trying to connect with the kill-or-be-killed logic of the animal world. Both sides struggle to adapt their instincts and remain at odds until an unexpected natural event puts them in a situation where they must learn to co-exist in order to survive.

Overall, The Wild Robot is aimed at a younger audience than I anticipated and leans heavily on its flashy visual sequences to compensate for a schlocky story. Respect is due to the animators here, they delivered some interesting designs and some respectable spectacles, but a lot of times they seemed hampered by some budgetary concerns. Also, a lot of the character interactions are pretty mean-spirited and, while not terribly violent, they sacrifice the noble message of acceptance in favor of some fleeting laughter.

This may sound unnecessarily harsh for a family movie, but there are several elements of superior films; Wall-E and Finding Nemo, for example, which in comparison made this attempt seem kind of hollow.

It has some environmental themes, I guess, but the world isn’t realized very well and is exasperated by some interesting yet unexplained insights, particularly toward the end. I will give it some points for being the most Hollywood movie I’ve seen this year containing all the warm and fuzzy gimmicks and tropes using a talented but bland cast which is neither good nor bad, it just is.

I would place this on the same shelf as Columbia/ Sony’s Open Season series as opposed to any of the many superior Pixar or Dreamworks projects.