From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Meet the Robinsons released in 2007.
Starring:
Daniel Hansen, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett
Directed by:
Stephen J. Anderson
Genre:
Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA):
G
Budget:
$150,000,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.9
The Synopsis is:
A young orphan inventor, Lewis is taken to the future by, Wilbur Robinson to help solve the mystery of a stolen time machine.
Story:
The story is based on a book called "A Day With Wilbur Robinson" written and illustrated by William Joyce about a boy, Lewis, spending the day with his best friend Wilbur and being introduced to his eccentric family.
The story is centered around the boys helping Wilbur's grandpa find his missing dentures. This feature is shown briefly in the film paying homage to the book, but is completely driven to revolve around the actions of the villain of the story, Mike Yagoobian who was created for the film to add more of a challenge in the story.
The book is also not set in any specific time, but the film went on and made it the future, taking the lead from the book, where it features Wilbur’s Dad as a wacky inventor of futuristic technology who has invented two time machines.
This project actually started out as a possible live action film. And in many ways it would have been intriguing to see this story told in that form, but it also might have gotten more flack for resembling Back To The Future released in 1985 too much.
The screenplay was tackled by seven writers and became Disney’s 47th animated feature.
After reading that the main character, Lewis was an orphan who eventually gets adopted in the screenplay, Stephen J. Anderson especially wanted to direct this film being an adopted child as well.
This plays into the film because the scenes of Lewis dealing with his identity and longing to be with his birth mother are the strongest and the most effectual.
John Lasseter, chief creative officer of animation at Disney, was shown an early version of the film to which he suggested changes to nearly 60 percent of the movie.
The story is good in my opinion, but laded with so many plot holes to do with time travel and some strange character decisions to create tension between Lewis and Wilbur Robinson.
The film pays homage to it’s inspirations, which are interwoven into the scenes.
The science fair that Wilbur attends is held at Joyce Williams Elementary school. This is a nod to the author of the original story, William Joyce.
One of the pictures on Lewis' wall in his room in the orphanage is of Nikola Tesla and a clock face of Albert Einstein.
The Robinsons' topiary garden is inspired by Walt Disney World topiaries.
The dinosaur in the film and the mascot for the baseball team that Goob plays for is a homage to 'Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo' also by William Joyce.
Pacing:
At 1 hour and 35 minutes. The pacing is not good in the beginning. The first two thirds of the film is pretty average and even confusing. But the last third is nothing short of amazing!
Challenge:
The challenge in this film is overwhelmingly obvious in the most cliched way. It’s the skinny, hooked nose, twirling mustache villain that we’ve seen since the silent film era.
Mike Yagoobian, also referred to as the Bowler Hat Guy, is our villain and visually he’s a character that kids will not find very scary and grown-ups might laugh at for being over the top, melodramatic, and not very smart.
One thing I have to say about this bad guy is that in the last third of the film he becomes a more fleshed out character with depth, who has lost his way in the world by not letting go of the past. He sought to see the everything in the worst light and is also the thesis of the film’s message of moving forward. It is through him that Lewis finally learns his most valuable life lesson.
One of the additions to the film after John Lasseter’s screening was to add a sidekick for the bad guy, and Doris the helpful bowler hat became the one.
Doris' name is taken from DOR-15, which is the item number of rejected inventions room at Robinson Industries.
At first you think that she is just a helpful robot, but then you realize that she is encouraging the Bowler Hat Guy to do all of the hard work for her.
Her mission is actually more sinister, to enslave the human race and take over the planet.
Cool villain…
She’s reminiscent of the purse in My Stepmother is an Alien released in 1988… the helpful sidekick turned main bad guy.
It is then that we also realize that the The Bowler Hat Guy is actually not as bad as we originally thought and I loved that depth character.
Empathy:
My empathy for the protagonist wanes in an out at times.
Lewis is an adorable 12 year old orphaned boy with a unique hairstyle and a sweet smile excited by the inventions he creates.
He has seen 124 families and failed to be adopted and there’s a good reason why. He’s unique. But he has taken the rejection hard, proclaiming that he has no future.
And this is really good stuff. This character has so much potential for a moral in the film because he carries with him the burden of failure, much like our villain.
His bright idea is that if he makes an invention that allows him to remember his past, he can remember his mom and see who she is, in order to claim an identity.
The machine was supposed to work, but it is sabotaged by Doris and Mike and that is when we meet Wilbur Robinson, a sly fast talking 13 year old from the future, who claims to be a time cop from the future.
The character of Wilbur Robinson, is reminiscent to the famous Will Robinson from the 1965 TV show Lost in Space. And the film pays homage to that by having the Robinson home robot say, "Danger, Will Robinson".
When they meet is also when Lewis becomes really unlikable during the middle of the film. I think it is pretty obvious that we can sympathize with his desire to see his mother. However, he ignores all reality and a lot of common sense to pursue it.
For instance, Lewis, knowing nothing about a time machine or how it works, impulsively takes the wheel and crashes it. He never apologizes for doing that and makes even more selfish demands without considering others.
The interaction between Wilbur and Lewis was really hard for me to watch because it plays into the trope of misunderstandings among characters. That is one trope I really dislike and they do it over and over in the film, until the last third.
Wilbur keeps asking Lewis to go back to the science fair and fix his memory invention, but Lewis wants to bypass that now that he knows that there is a time machine. All the confusion would have been easily avoided if Wilbur explained to Lewis that his invention is what leads to the creation of the time machine.
What redeems Wilbur is that he made a terrible mistake by leaving the home garage open allowing The Bowler Hat Guy to steal one of the two only time machines in existence. He is taking responsibility trying to fix his mistake.
Technical:
It has a very bright beautiful aesthetic when it comes to many of the visuals.
I enjoyed the very bold colors and the added gritty textures to many of the inanimate objects giving this playful animated world a bit of real world charm.
The visuals for the future world of "Todayland" is a tribute to "Tomorrowland", in the Disney theme parks. It’s simply gorgeous and dazzling. I especially loved the fact that people travel through bubbles and tubes.
The tube travel reminded me of the tube travel in Barbarella released in 1968 and the TV show Futurama.
I wasn’t too excited by some of the character designs. The book actually surpassed the film in that regard, however, there were some exceptional standouts, like the details put into The Bowler Hat Guy’s teeth and the the edge of his hairline on the back of his head.
It’s so strange but even from the poster, trailer, and even while watching the film, it doesn’t look like a Disney animated film at all.
At first I thought the film was produced by one of the lesser known animated studios out there. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but the design of the characters are a bit more crude than something I would expect from Disney. And perhaps they were experimenting with something new to appeal to a young audience. So much of it is simplistic, exaggerated and sometimes geometric.
However, I can say that the animated demonstration of emotional range within each of the characters was outstanding giving the story real depth.
The film’s score was pretty amazing along with some great recordings such as, Little Wonders
by Rob Thomas, Another Believer by Rufus Wainwright and Marius De Vries, and The Future Has Arrived Written by Danny Elfman and Performed by The All-American Rejects.
Performances:
The performances were pretty great with a lot of surprise performers.
Angela Bassett voiced Mildred the lady who runs Lewis’ orphanage.
And Tom Selleck plays Cornelius Robinson, which the film throws in as a gag saying that the character looks like him. But actually doesn’t as part of the joke.
It took four years for the production of this film and the original actor Daniel Hansen voiced Lewis until his voice aged out of the character, then Jordan Fry took over and even re-dubbed in many scenes.
The director Stephen J. Anderson was so involved with the film that he ended up doing 3 voices in the film, Bowler Hat Guy, Grandpa Bud, and Tallulah (lady with the thing on her head).
Best:
There are so many amazing moments in this film.
I enjoyed all of little Goob’s scenes. It’s so interesting that he would have been fine if he hadn't bumped into his future self who gave him some bad advice.
I loved the last third of the film, if you haven’t already heard me rave about it throughout this review.
The ending:
I just loved the ending. It wraps up pretty sweetly with a wonderful message from Walt Disney himself urging all creative artists to keep moving forward after their failures. It gets me teary eyed every time.
Wish List:
I wish that there were fewer characters. The film wanted to preserve the charm of the book’s many zany characters. But with the main focus of the film being a revenge story for the Bowler Hat Guy, it doesn’t work to have so many characters with barely any effect on the outcome of the story.
Like this little girl. She has no reason for being in the film except to set up as a gag to have the coach attacked by ants. We didn’t need it.
The Robinson family is important for Lewis to realize his purpose and I think the emotion could have been concentrated with Loretta, Grandpa Bud, Franny, and Wilbur.
I wish that there were fewer gags. There is something about a gag that makes you smile but never actually laugh. It’s cute, but it feels completely out of place sandwiched in between a dramatic beginning and an action packed ending.
For instance, the story stops for a meatball fight mocking late 70’s Kung Fu movies and there is a running gag of The Bowler Hat Guy not thinking his plans through.
I wished the movie included more insight into the future world, more gadgets, creative insights and predictions.
I wish the film had more time travelling adventures. We see a hint of that when The Bowler Hat Guy goes into the past to collect a dinosaur.
And it seems Disney saw the potential for this exact idea in the video game prequel spin off in 2007, where the characters get to visit Ancient Egypt.
And I wish we had more of the singing frogs. They had some incredible likability potential. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a whole movie about those guys.
They went on to re-appear in theaters in an anti-cell phone campaign.
Enjoyment:
Many people don't even know about this film and the people who know of it know it as Disney's least popular animated movie. I barely remember the promotion for this movie when it came out. But when I saw the movie, I realized that I had seen a trailer at one time and just forgot it.
And there is a reason why. Aesthetically it’s very forgettable because it has a generic kids movie facade akin to a made for TV movie you’d find on the Disney Channel.
However, about 60 percent of the film is unique and, dare I say, outstanding. So yeah, I enjoyed it.
I think it’s a sweet movie with a very big heart and a wonderfully inspiring message for dreamers, inventors, and creators to understand that failure is so very important because it will lead you to success if you keep trying.
Put your mistakes in the past and learn from them.
Just keep moving forward!
My Rating:
7.6
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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