Robots
Listening to: Rasool - Jill Scott
I went to see Robots on Saturday. Being a sucker for a CG movie it was a no-brainer
really.
Robots is a Rube
Goldberg machine, literally and metaphorically.
Many of the scenes in the movie have been inspired by some sort of marble fetish (scenes
lending themselves to great physical comedy by Fender, voiced by Robin Williams) and
they are really fun. There are even some cute visual allusions to movies like LotR
Two Towers and the Minority Report. But like all amazingly complex solutions to simple
problems it leaves you with that ‘oh! you only wanted to crack the egg???’ feeling…a
little wanting. To be fair the movie never pitched itself as anything more than it
is… but still, don’t expect too much.
As usual Robin Williams is very funny and in some ways his frenetic voice carries
the movie. Jim Broadbent is brilliant as Madame Gasket. Other than that the rest of
the cast are rendered into oblivion by the computer graphics and weak characters.
The scenes of Rodney growing up are very clever and it’s a shame that same the wit
didn’t make it beyond the 30 minute mark.
My inner geek would love to see some how some of the scenes where implemented, particularly
the ones involving traveling across the robot city. They are cool, but I would dearly
love to know about the physics model they used…. because it must’ve been pretty
impressive.
The feeling that nags me about the movie is that it could’ve been a lot better…
and it just shows how good Pixar movies are at present.
