A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Robots

Date Viewed: 3/27/05

Details:

Voice talents (alphabetic order): Paula Abdul (Watch)

Halle Berry (Cappy)

Terry Bradshaw (Broken Arm Bot)

Jim Broadbent (Madame Gasket)

Mel Brooks (Bigweld)

Amanda Bynes (Piper)

Drew Carey (Crank)

Paul Giamatti (Tim the Gate Guard)

Dan Hedaya (Mr. Gunk)

James Earl Jones (Voice Box at Hardware Store)

Greg Kinnear (Ratchet)

Jay Leno (Fire Hydrant)

Ewan McGregor (Rodney Copperbottom)

Al Roker (Mailbox)

Stanley Tucci (Herb Copperbottom)

Dianne Wiest (Mrs. Copperbottom)

Robin Williams (Fender)

Directors: Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha

Score: 1/2

The Review: A tour de force for CG animation.

Rivet Town and Robot City are the venues for this latest animated feature in the world of robotics, and only robotics: a clanky toon-town where there are no humans and mere aspirations to humanity. Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor) grows up with dreams of becoming an inventor and working for Bigweld (Brooks), but his dreams fall upon hard times when he ventures into the big city in search of his destiny, and stumbles upon corporate corruption and evil doings.

When you don't have to spend artistry and CPU cycles on expression and facial nuances (as in the characters of Polar Express) then you have lots more to spend on background and detail. And boy, is there a lot of detail -- as with many animated (or computer backgrounded) features in recent years, there's almost too much to see, and definitely too much to take in on one viewing. It's becoming almost routine to have lots of sight gags, puns and quick jokes that pass without special attention: like the labels on the rest rooms.

Some pretty good voice talents were enlisted (see the list), but ultimately this film just did not click. Just as it's hard to sympathize with grumpy, repulsive or stupid characters (e.g., some of Denzel Washington and Jack Nicholson's recent work), it's also hard to empathize with gadgets -- because that's how these robots ultimately come across: as gadgets with personalities. Some of the personalities actually work (Robin Williams, for example), and there are some amusing innuendos that can work with such gadgets (such as "delivery" and "making the baby"), but ultimately it is unsatisfying. I prefer fish, ogres, mammoths, kodama or toys.

Of course, anything with Mel Brooks needs a big production number to end things, even if he's neither the director nor producer.

One major detraction: it needed more editing and tightening up -- it was a bit draggy at places. One major goodie: it opens with a new 90-second short with the continuing adventures of Scrat (from Ice Age).

(1-Apr-05)

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