Starring (the
voices of): Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle
Berry , Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks
Released: 18th March 2005
Cert: U
So there was “From the makers of
Toy Story,” right? And then came,
“From the makers of Shrek,” too. Now
there is, “From the makers of Ice
Age,” and if
you say, “Who? What?” then I recommend you go rent/buy it because it was an
excellent animated kiddies’ film.
Robots is by them
and is about Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor) who is an impressionable young robot
from a hardened modest background who decides to make something of his life by
travelling to Robot City to sell an invention of his to the World’s greatest
robot, Big Weld (Brooks).
Weld is responsible for supplying
spare parts to the robots of the World and believes that every robot is perfect
the way they are. Unfortunately by the time Rodney arrives at the factory, Weld
has gone missing and the company has been taken over by Ratchet (Kinnear) who
disbands producing parts in favour of expensive upgrades. Those robots who
cannot afford the upgrades will deteriorate and eventually become scrap.
Rodney and friends (Williams)
decide to fight back by repairing the faulting citizens, rescuing Weld and
finally going up against Ratchet and his cronies in person.
The animation is, as ever,
faultless (although how a metal formed mouth is able to bend when talking is
beyond me), the overall visuals are stunning, the characters are quirky enough
to be entertaining and the story is simple enough for the kids to follow and
enjoy.
Ultimately, though, there isn’t anything really new here. There isn’t
that spark to elevate Robots from an
‘Okay’ film to ‘Really good’. The story is almost rushed, in a sense, with
objectives reached and obstacles overcome swiftly and characters thrown into the
mix with such rapidity that many are just there for the sake of additional
merchandising opportunities rather than as protagonists.
Again, the makers seem to have decided to revoice a number of the
secondary characters to make it more native friendly in the British market. The
most interesting choice being the inclusion of Eamon Holmes’
Blarney brogue for
Ratchet’s father.
It’s a mish-mash of other films
with ‘in’ references (or perhaps plain lazy scene theft) in every other
sequence. It’s a film that will probably be easily forgotten but will, at least,
occupy a couple of hours during the impending Easter school break.
