The Wild Robot delivers a deluge of heart and gorgeous animation

Filmmaker Chris Sanders did not always intend his 2002 directorial debut Lilo & Stitch (which he helmed with Dean DeBlois) to be a film. Originally, that feature started as a children’s book Sanders cooked up back in the 1980s. Youth-oriented literature ambitions eventually fell by the wayside. Instead, Sanders pursued a career at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Decades have passed since those initial plans for that rambunctious blue alien. Now, this man’s latest directorial effort sees him adapting the kind of text Stitch was supposed to debut in.

The Wild Robot, adapted from a Peter Brown children’s book of the same name, doesn’t just echo earlier Sanders works in its source material. This new feature carries on thematic fascinations that have run throughout this man’s whole career. Works like Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Croods (not to mention his sole live-action title The Call of the Wild) are fascinated with the natural world and deeply empathetic towards societal oddballs. Also like his first two directorial efforts, The Wild Robot is terrifically moving.

The screenplay by Sanders begins with a circular ROZZUM robot washing ashore on a deeply isolated island. This mechanical creation, which eventually goes by the name Roz, is supposed to help humans in high-tech confines. Now, through total chance, she’s stuck in a landscape devoid of human beings or any other technology. After accidentally being turned on, she immediately pursues her primary function in life: to complete tasks for her purchasers. The various critters on this island (possums, squirrels, otters, a bear, etc) immediately see this organism as “a monster”.

While navigating this treacherous terrain, Roz comes upon a single gosling egg. Once it hatches, the youngster imprints on Roz and believes she is his mother. Roz can't leave this island now. With the aid of scheming fox Fink (Pedro Pascal), this protocol-obsessed robot must take on the role of surrogate mother. There’s a ticking clock on this gosling eventually named Brightbill (Kit Connor). He needs to fly off this island by winter. Reaching that goal could be difficult with Roz and her adherence to her instruction manual.

What a year it’s been for comedies wringing gags out of totally unprepared folks navigating the wilderness and mischievous critters. The first act of The Wild Robot fabulously channels Hundreds of Beavers with various jokes about wilderness survival and the animal kingdom’s savagery. No matter how many times it happens, it never stops being funny to hear adolescent critters nonchalantly talk about how death lurks just around the corner. Similarly consistent humor emerges juxtaposing Roz’s mechanical aloofness against vividly emotional animals. Committing to darker jokes (like Roz trying to talk to a decapitated bird’s head or a baby animal getting devoured just off-screen) ensures this core narrative element works. Audiences aren’t just told about this island's dangerousness. We see it firsthand.

Impressively, Sanders manages to have his cake and eat it too with this Wild Robot facet. Initially, the movie reels in audiences with hysterical jokes about animals devouring one another. Later on, though, the emphasis on death lends genuine emotional stakes to Brightbill’s necessity to migrate. The Wild Robot can use tangible mortality in one scene to heighten the humor of Fink devouring a crab on-screen. Later on, Roz or Brightbill being in palpable peril feels real rather than the set-up for a joke. This deft equilibrium thrives thanks to a quality of the production that would make The Great Pumpkin proud: utter sincerity.

Now there’s a word one doesn’t usually utter when it comes to DreamWorks Animation movies. Throughout the studio’s history, DreamWorks has become synonymous with digital fish that make references to past Renee Zellweger movies or snails talking in the snarky vocals of Ryan Reynolds. Lilo & Stitch directors Sanders and DeBlois already brought pathos-driven adventure storytelling to the studio with How to Train Your Dragon. Now on his own, Sanders brings that classical aesthetic to the table once again. Roz’s saga wears its heart on its sleeve and the script doesn't “apologize” for that through ceaseless self-conscious quips.

Instead, the story's intimate scope lets viewers believe the gradual bond forming between Roz and other animals like Brightbill and Fink. Their relationships carry emotional weight rather than functioning as vessels for immediately outdated pop culture references.  Frantic loudness defines other modern animated movies (hello Despicable Me 4!) is eschewed to give breathing room between primary characters. This attention to rich subtle details is beautifully encapsulated in Lupita Nyong’o’s outstanding lead vocal performance as Roz.

When Roz’s voice first appears in The Wild Robot, she sounds perfectly adjacent to Siri, Alexa, or any other modern A.I. program. Devoid of individuality, vocal “warmth” cranked up to eleven. As the story goes on, Nyong’o injects tiny flourishes into Roz’s line deliveries suggesting how she’s becoming increasingly emotion-driven rather than adhering to programming. Sentences begin to flow together more naturally, for example, or she’ll pause to choose her words more carefully. It’s those little details that make Roz’s journey so transfixing. There’s absolutely no question that Lupita Nyong’o’s performance as Roz immediately catapults to the level of Robin Williams as The Genie, George Sanders as Shere Khan, and John C. Reilly as Wreck-It Ralph in the pantheon of all-time great celebrity voice-over performances.

Even with its rich pathos and superb voice-over performance, The Wild Robot’s greatest thrills lie in its imagery. Recent DreamWorks Animation titles like The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish firmly embraced a post-Spider-Verse world of highly stylized computer animation rooted in 2D imagery. The Wild Robot amplifies those visual traits to a beautiful degree. For one thing, cinematographer Chris Stover’s lighting in this feature is tremendously impressive. For another, Roz’s island home is a vibrant wonderland full of branches, dangling cherry blossoms, and waves that look as if they were hand-painted. You can practically see the brushstrokes on these occasionally impressionistic backdrops. Further heightened touches include the film’s nightmarish depiction of fire and a decidedly unique frame rate for a sequence where Fink tells Brightbill a bedtime story.

The various animals, meanwhile, are executed with lines evoking jagged pencil doodling. Fink’s bushy tail, for instance, looks like it could have been sketched during the Xerox era of Walt Disney Animation Studios. This emphasizing the wear and tear of these critters effectively contrasts with Roz’s outstanding circular appearance. Jenny Nicholson, somebody in Hollywood heeded your complaints about Solo’s Lady droid L3-37 has a classically “feminine” character design. Roz’s design in The Wild Robot is a terrific way of realizing a robot with a woman’s voice. Her design emphasizes a deeply pleasing round shape rather than looking like a Baymax equivalent to Mrs. Pac-Man. Every part of her body (including her fingers) lacking angles or sharp edges immediately communicates her life's purpose. She is a human-sized helper, not a fighter.

Best of all in her design, though, is the bold but correct move to not give her a mouth. Anthropomorphizing digital robots too much can result in some funky-looking creations, as the MCU Ultron can attest. Even Transformers One suffered from giving its mechanical leads oddly mushy-looking lips. The Wild Robot, meanwhile, eschews a mouth or super malleable eyes. Instead, subtler details offer a window into Roz’s soul. The film’s animators deliver superb work wringing meaning out of slight head tilts or how Roz composes her arms. Who needs a mouth to solidify emotions when you’ve got such remarkable animators and a voice-over performer like Lupita Nyong’o?

With The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders hasn’t just delivered a film harkening back to his original Lilo & Stitch plans. He’s also crafted something echoing the very first movie DreamWorks Animation put into production: The Prince of Egypt. Like that 1998 take on Moses, this 2024 feature is a visually stunning exercise unafraid to execute tremendous emotional swings unflinchingly. It’s understandable to gaze at the Wild Robot posters and ponder how something seemingly derivative of Big Hero 6 or The Iron Giant could live up to such a comparison. However, The Wild Robot comes alive as its own creation thanks to the bold creativity of Sanders and the film’s other artists (including head of story Heidi Jo Gilbert and a soaring score from Kris Bowers). A willingness to revel in distinctive animation and sincere poignancy informs The Wild Robot's idiosyncratic soul.