(Credit: Amazon.com)
Directed by:
Chris Wedge
Carlos Saldanha (co-director)
Starring:
Ewan McGregor……….Rodney Copperbottom
Robin Williams……….Fender
Greg Kinnear……….Ratchet
Jim Broadbent……….Madame Gasket
Amanda Bynes……….Piper
Drew Carey……….Crank
Mel Brooks……….Bigweld
Halle Berry……….Cappy
Harland Williams……….Lug
Jennifer Coolidge……….Aunt Fanny
The Movie:
For the better part of the last decade Pixar has cornered the market when it comes to computer generated films. It wasn’t until about four years ago that Dreamworks PDI division entered the picture with Shrek as their first viable threat to Pixar’s dominating empire. Now for about three years, Blue Sky studios has been the new kid on the block with their release of Ice Age back in 2002. The big question is, will they be able to capitalize on their success with their second outing and keep up with the big boys?
Rodney Copperbottom has always dreamed of being and inventor, ever since he could remember he’s wanted to help his fellow robot kind. Even growing up in a family that just scrapes by and growing up with hand me down parts, his dream never falters. One day Rodney finally taking initiative and leaves Rivet town to go to Robot City in hopes of making his long time dream a reality. Only once he makes it to town he realizes that his journey is not going to be a simple one. He soon encounters Fender, the Artful Dodger of the robot world. Rodney tries to meet Mr. Bigweld his long time idol to show him his invention, until he finds out that it seems Bigweld hasn’t been seen for quite some time.
With Mr. Ratchet at the reign of the company he begins stoping the production of spare parts in order to force robots into buying upgrades. But we soon find out that he isn’t exactly the mastermind behind this scheme, it’s his evil mother Madame Gasket who runs the chop shop that has come up with this dastardly plan. This is where the movie begins to fall apart from what was beginning to be an entertaining build up. Because the villan we’ve thought was behind everything is a mere puppet to a much less sinister adversary. After this the movie just continues to fall further and further down the trail of mediocrity.
We’ve all seen this story before, a small town boy goes to the big city where he finds his dreams are in jeopardy due to some villan trying to get in the way. And now he and his crew of misfits need to rally together and take him down. Robots does nothing to try and alter the story, all they did was change the “big city” in to “robot city” and change a poor kid with a dream into a poor robot kid with a dream.
It seems as if the creators were more concerned about making a “cool” movie about robots than to create a story that happened to be best told through them. They took a more Dreamworks approach by making things look incredible and load the cast with big name stars, only to put the story to the way side. The problem is we’ve seen this movie countless times before. The magic of animated movies be it CGI or hand drawn animation, is the story, that’s what always manages to pull at our heart strings and make them timeless. With Robots I think studio’s are going to begin to realize that putting pretty images up on screen just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Blue Sky has managed to put its foot in the door, now all they needs to do is make a movie that strikes all the right cords instead of just the ones that are proven to make the most money. The young studio can benefit from the work of Pixar and Dreamworks by using them as a guide of seeing what works and what doesn’t. The crew at Blue Sky are on the right track to become a big studio some day, all they need to do is be more careful of what they choose to greenlight.
It’s a great movie for parents to sit down with their kids as a family for 90 minutes. As far as buying it goes, the things the movie actually manages to do right are few and far between, which makes it a perfect rental for family movie night. That’s about it.
Rating: 5.5/10
The Video:
(Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen)
After recently watching Toy Story on DVD and then swapping it out to watch Robots it’s unbelievable how far this technology has advanced in such a short period. The picture here is beyond words. Simply put this is one of the best looking animated films around. I imagine they took this video source from the master files as there are no noticeable errors what so ever. Colors pop off screen and the metallic look of Robot City with it’s brushed metal surfaces and texture isn’t compromised with the transition to DVD at all.
Rating: 10/10
The Audio:
(English Dolby Digital 5.1, English DTS 5.1, Spanish & French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
The included DTS audio track adds atmosphere to the overall experience. You’ll hear little “clinks” and “clanks” that go unnoticed through the standard Dolby 5.1 track. Also if you view the movie through the DTS track your shown a cute PSA that was in theaters along with the movie about turning off all cell phones.
Rating: 8.5/10
The Extras:
Commentary by director Chris Wedge and producer William Joyce – This seems to be the weakest of the two, Wedge and Joyce speak very softly and it becomes annoying having to higher and lower the audio to make out what they’re saying. It’s not so much informative as it’s just them discussing how great everything is and how they love what’s happening on screen.
Commentary by the Blue Sky technical team – Here we get to listen to seven crew members just having a blast talking about their work. This is very enjoyable and informative for those interested in these types of technical commentary tracks. They even point out little inside jokes and movie references while they watch the movie.
“Aunt Fanny’s Tour of Booty” (5mins) – We’re taken on a tour of what appears to be the train station with Aunt Fanny as our tour guide. Laughs are almost non existent in this piece and you have to question why include something that is so pointless and unfunny. I’m sure kids will get a kick out of it, but big butt jokes can only go so far.
Inside Look at the Making of Ice Age 2 (3mins) – This is an exclusive behind the scenes piece with John Leguizamo leading us through Blue Sky animation studio’s. Before the short featurette begins we’re shown the Ice Age 2: The Meltdown teaser trailer. What’s shown is very short and is here for the most part to get people hyped for Ice Age 2 due out early next year.
Discontinued Parts – There are three deleted scenes available in this section, sadly they aren’t given any finishing touches so they range from final stage to animatics to story boards. All three scenes are extensions of existing shots already in the movie. They add very little to the overall plot and it’s no wonder they show up here. Optional commentary by director Chris Wedge is available.
The Original Robots Short (2mins) – Here is the two minute short that was used to sell the idea of a full length movie based around robots to the studio. Director commentary is available here also.
“You Can Shine No Matter What You’re Made Of” (18mins) – This comes off as something that would be shown on HBO or Starz as a quick behind the scenes featurette. The directors mostly talk about the design of the robots and the idea of making a movie about robots and creating the robot city. Basically all the guys are giving themselves a pat on the back. Oddly they talk about Cappy as a main character yet she comes off as nothing more than a plot device durring the movie.
Blue Man Group music featurette (5mins) – A behind the scenes look at the blue man group in the studio adding sound to the film. When is watching the Blue Man Group work their magic ever a bad thing? Certainly not this time, while director Chris Wedge comes off a bit dry, the founders of the Blue Man Group give nice insight to the group and their sound process.
Meet the Bots – This is a sort of interactive feature, we’re brought to a screen that has 11 characters from the movie lined up and you can choose each individually to be brought to their respected page. From there you can read their character’s biography, watch a short video that shows the actor behind the voice talking about the process of voicing in an animated movie, watch a quick character rendition that shows the robot selected in a 3-D mode, or lastly view the progression of the character through a design gallery.
Robot Arcade – Included are 3 interactive games that grow tiresome right away. There’s Robot Dance where you can select a specific dance routine and have the robot featured in the movie perform the act. You’ll lose interest at almost the exact same time you choose a dance for him to do. Then there’s Invent-a-Bot where you have to gather parts to help create a domino bot designed to set up complex domino courses. Lastly there’s Fender Photo Shoot which is basically a memory game that shows you a screen capture from the movie for a few seconds then asks you three questions about things found in the image.
Wrapping up the special features are an Xbox Exclusive Multi-Player Racing Game that you can play when you put the DVD in an Xbox console. And some DVD Rom Link.
Rating: 5.5/10
