R O B O T S (2005)
Directed by: Chris Wedge
With all the crummy and mediocre films that Hollywood puts out (and that I've seen), I've gotten pretty good at spotting the bad and not-so-great ones before I end up in the theatre seat. Robots triggered a couple of red flags right away. For one thing, the voice cast is all well-known TV and film actors. In my experience, when a film packs on the stars, it usually means that the studio doesn't trust that the material is good enough to stand on its own (an exception: Minority Report). Another alarm is that the trailer is fairly long and chock-full of funny gags. This isn't always the case, but that usually means you've now seen the best parts in the movie. A recent example of this is the comedy Road Trip, that looked hilarious from the trailer but turned out not to be that great, because the funniest stuff was used in promotion. Tragically, Robots is another prime example of this. Although it is a CGI and effects triumph with a talented voice cast, the story is thin and formulaic, and the humor intended to liven things up isn't able to do it, because, if you watch TV, the funniest lines and gags have already lost their freshness from the commercials.
"That's exactly what that UFO I saw looked like! Only it was outside. And it wasn't a floating dinner plate."
What is immediately obvious about Robots is that it's a children's movie. Unlike The Incredibles which had story appeal for every age, Robots is a predictable tale dumbed down enough for the under-10 crowd to understand with little effort. The nuts 'n bolts of the plot concern eager, hopeful robot Rodney Copperbottom (voice Ewan McGregor), who goes to the big city to become an inventor like his idol, Bigweld (Mel Brooks) who tells idealistic 'bots like Rodney that they can shine no matter what they are made of. But when Rodney gets to the city, he finds that Bigweld is AWOL at his company, which is now under the control of the decidedly un-nice Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) and his manipulative mother who intend to destroy all the old, outdated robots that refuse to buy their expensive upgrades. Meeting eccentric Fender (Robin Williams), his sister Piper (Amanda Bynes) and their other "outmoded" companions (Drew Carey, and Halle Berry as an underused ally from Bigweld's company), Rodney finds it's up to him to help Bigweld and stop Ratchet's evil plan.
The few story elements are riveted in place with touching lines about going for your dreams, not giving up, and being happy just the way you are. All that's missing is a giant purple dinosaur 'bot singing "I love you/you love meee...," which is kinda surprising, considering how many other gags are tossed in. Some will most likely go right over the kiddies' heads, such as a reference to Milton Bradely's "Operation" game, and a Brittany Spears lampoon is mildly amusing, but probably won't make much sense a few years (months!) from now when everybody's forgotten her. The majority of the humor depends on other staged gags, like a figure skating sequence, and a wrestling match, and the occassional bathroom joke that are cute, but seem to be trying too hard to get laughs. Unfortunately (as I mentioned earlier), the best of the jokes were done to death in the previews, so you end up with an animated comedy that is surprisingly unfunny and not very interesting if you're older than 8 and have normal brain function.
"Build a Baby: guaranteed not to disgrace the family name, or your money back!"
In exchange for good storytelling, Robots offers instead a dazzling visual adventure. Children of the 70's and 80's will recognize parts of the city's transportation network from mechanical toys, and the robot city itself is an engineer's fantasy land, borrowing heavily from "Mouse Trap," another Milton Bradely classic. It all helps to create a wonderful sense of fun and imagination that extends into the design of the robots themselves, who are toilets, mail boxes, fire hydrants, and boxing robots, among other things real and fanciful.
The net effect of all of this is that Robots comes across like a sleek, new car that has no engine. Stalled by bad designing, all it can do is look cool and make you wonder what you're missing. But for the kiddies, that'll be good enough, at least until an upgraded model comes along to replace it.
