The Wild Robot: An animated treasure

The Wild Robot (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for action, peril and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.24

This is most sumptuously gorgeous animated film I’ve seen in years.

 

That’s surprising, given that it comes from the American Dreamworks Animation team; the verdant, sparkling look is much more typical of Tokyo’s Studio Ghibli. Indeed, in the production notes, director Chris Sanders described his film’s visual style as “a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest.”

 

ROZZUM Unit 7134, renamed Roz (left), and Fink (right) contemplate the helpless
little gosling that has imprinted itself upon the large robot.

Image isn’t everything, of course, but recalling that Sanders co-directed and co-wrote Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon — both of which earned well-deserved Oscar nominations, for stories concerning species alien to each other, who learn to come together for the greater good — I had no doubt that he was just the right person to adapt Peter Brown’s popular 2016 middle-grade book.

Sanders solos this time, as both director and scripter; purists will recognize that he has, um. “massaged” Brown’s story a bit. Even so, the book’s tone and spirit have been translated faithfully, along with the essential moral that has become even more relevant today: “Kindness is a survival skill.”

 

The setting is our Earth, somewhen in the distant future. A savage storm prompts some sort of crash, which catapults a large crate onto a distant island bereft of human activity. Curious otters, poking inside the partially shattered crate, accidentally activate its inhabitant: a large, flexible robot dubbed ROZZUM Unit 7134.

 

It’s a companion robot, designed to fulfill “any and all tasks” requested by human owners. Upon activation, it requires a task ... but nobody can assign one.

 

The robot is voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, whose sensitive performance here reminds anew that we’ve long needed an Oscar category for such work. Her clipped, metallic, somewhat childlike cadence is note-perfect, as the robot attempts to make sense of these unexpected surroundings.

 

Small animals flee from her; large animals attack her. One encounter proves catastrophic, when she’s knocked over a cliff and lands hard on a goose nest. The mother is killed, the nest destroyed ... except for one egg. When a close scan reveals life inside, the robot decides to protect it.

 

That initially proves difficult, thanks to a predatory red fox that wishes the egg for breakfast. When it unexpectedly hatches, the fox is equally content to swallow the gosling; the robot somehow senses that this would be ... well ... inappropriate.

Rocketman: Blast off!

Rocketman (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and sexual content
By Derrick Bang

Elton John’s life is the stuff of legend anyway, so the fantasy touches certainly don’t feel out of place in director Dexter Fletcher’s audaciously opulent jukebox musical.

And so it begins: Reggie Dwight (Taron Egerton, left) and Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell)
are excited to discover that their musical strengths perfectly complement each other.

Granted, it’s disconcerting when little Matthew Illesley — as young Reginald Kenneth Dwight — warbles the first few lines of “The Bitch Is Back,” which promptly turns into a lavish dance production involving all the denizens of his family’s suburban Middlesex neighborhood. But Fletcher cleverly sets the film’s tone with that number, particularly with respect to cinematographer George Richmond’s clever use of color.

Nor is this sequence the first eyebrow-lift. The film actually opens when the adult Elton (Taron Egerton), in outrageous performance dress, strides down an institutional hallway in order to join a group counseling session at a fancy rehabilitation clinic. His saga subsequently unfolds as an extended flashback, with occasional returns to the present; as the story progresses, Elton sheds more and more of the costume, reflecting his willingness to be increasingly candid.

A rather obvious metaphor, but it works.

Rocketman covers Elton John’s life from childhood, in the late 1950s, to 1990, when he had a God-given moment of lucidity — amid a downward spiral of drugs, alcohol and depression — and wisely checked himself into rehab. Given a music library well in excess of 300 songs, armed with Bernie Taupin’s alternately energetic and poignant lyrics, it obviously wasn’t difficult for Fletcher to highlight each step of Reggie’s life with a cleverly appropriate (or archly ironic) tune.

Most of the 22 song choices and stagings are inspired; a few are a bit forced, a little too on the nose. They don’t arrive in anything approaching chronological sequence, but rather as suits a given scene (hence the aforementioned startling use of “The Bitch Is Back”).

Lee Hall’s screenplay occasionally loses steam, mostly during the second act (which seems crazy, given the arc of John’s career, but pacing here is crucial). Even so, the film’s overall impact is breathtaking: both because of the music, and its presentation, and Egerton’s flat-out astonishing performance.

At times, he looks, sounds and acts more like Elton John than the man himself. It’s not merely a matter of Egerton nailing John’s defiantly sassy, mildly pugnacious stage presence; the actor also has impressive vocal chops (as is obvious to anybody who’s seen his recent duets with John, on “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocket Man”).