I wasn’t particularly hot on the trailer and television ads
for this animated film (the hip-hoppin’ frogs seemed much more of an
embarrassment to me, divorced from their context), but after first seeing Meet the Robinsons a friend and
colleague of mine described the movie as Back
to the Future meets The Incredibles,
which is an admittedly awesome and alluring hybrid pitch. And I can see the
comparison, honestly, even if the movie isn’t fully an out-of-the-park smash in
my opinion. Spinning a sweetly moralizing story around serial wackiness, Meet the Robinsons scores mondo points
courtesy of its bright and inviting character design and smart, fanciful
writing, which combine to render a movie straight down the middle in terms of
kid-appeal plot something that, truly, the entire family can enjoy.
A Day with Wilbur Robinson, the movie is set in the fantastical
world of 2037, where dogs that wear glasses are as common as talking dinosaurs
(which is to say quite common). Twelve-year-old orphan Lewis (voiced by Daniel
Hansen) is brilliant and positive-minded, and always coming up with new
inventions, even if some of them don’t quite work out exactly as he first
intended. After yet another adoption falls through, Lewis — working with a
“memory scanner” that conjures up fleeting thoughts of his pre-adolescence — sets
off on a journey to find the family he never knew, a journey that becomes a
trip through time.
Lewis is given a friendly push-and-pull in that direction by
Wilbur Robinson (voiced by Wesley Singerman), a teenager who bills himself as a
time cop from the future, (don’t worry, there’s no Jean-Claude Van Damme in
sight…), and says that Lewis is needed to help fix the space-time continuum. As
quirky as he is, Wilbur’s extended family is populated by even more oddballs,
hence the movie’s name. The film’s requisite villain? That would chiefly be
Bowler Hat Guy, a sort of combination of Snidely Whiplash’s moustache-twirling fatuousness
and Gargamel’s dimness. Along the way, Lewis discovers that the fate of the
future rests in his hands, but he can’t save it alone — he’ll need every bit of
help he can get from the wonderfully wacky Robinson family, who help him learn
to keep moving forward and, naturally, never stop believing in himself.
Longtime Disney fans will appreciate not only Meet the Robinsons’ richly detailed,
animated futuristic setting, but also get a hoot out of its many quirky
supporting characters, which are an ample platform for fun, inviting voice work from Laurie Metcalf, Angela
Bassett, Adam West and Tom Selleck, among others. Wilbur’s bubbly mother Franny,
for instance, has developed a method for teaching frogs, such as Mafia don Frankie
the Frog, to sing. And then there’s Tiny the Dinosaur, a T-Rex whose huge head
and big heart are offset by cartoonishly small arms, giving him a bit of a
complex.
Meet the Robinsons
is directed by Stephen J. Anderson, who also voices the villainous Bowler Hat
Guy.
and storyboard artist (he also worked on Disney’s Brother Bear, Emperor’s New
Groove and Tarzan) is readily
apparent, as he helps give the movie a real sense of visual coherence. The
writing is equally graceful; stream-of-consciousness asides that are a hallmark
of animated productions are a part of Meet
the Robinsons, yes, but here they don’t feel overly work-shopped or tacked
on. They feed the story a bit, and certainly bring the characterizations into
sharper focus. The writers also retain a few arrows of surprise in their quiver,
having fun with the narrative bends that time travel affords, but also tying
things together in the end an interesting, albeit still characteristically heartwarming
fashion.
Housed in a regular Amray case in turn stored in an
attractive cardboard slipcover, Meet the
Robinsons comes presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16×9
televisions. Its picture is crisp and clear, with solid colors and no artifacts
or edge enhancement. Sound is presented in a superb Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound mix, with English, Spanish and French audio tracks. DVD bonus features include
a solid array of material, kicking off with an audio commentary track from
in which he talks about his own love of animation and his attachment to the
material. A small collection of a half dozen deleted scenes is also included,
with on-camera introductions from
as to why the material was cut (time/story flow constraints, mostly).
The 18-minute making-of featurette Inventing the Robinsons follows the arc of the movie’s development,
from pre-production through animation rendering and beyond; it’s interesting to
note that the movie was at one point tabbed for live-action production, but
concerns over the cost of futuristic sets and effects work helped put the
kibosh on those plans. There’s also a six-minute talking-head piece on inventions
that shaped the real world and a pair of music videos — “Little Wonders” from
ex-Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas, and “Kids of the Future” from Jonas
Brothers — to keep toes tapping. Finally, as with many Disney titles, there’s a
set-top game, this one an amiable trivia-based distraction entitled Family Function 5000: Family Tree Game.
In it, Lewis’ newest invention organizes his enormous family tree so he can
keep track of his family-to-be. Unfortunately, as with most prototypes, there
are a few bugs to be worked out, requiring assistance in the form of testing viewers’
memories.
Overall, this is a solid and fun title, certainly a movie that parents can watch, shame-free, with their kids. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)