DVD Review: Robots
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::Movie review
When Rube Goldberg died in 1970, his spirit no doubt took the same trip into the Great Unknown that Rodney (Ewan McGregor) takes across Robot City in the film Robots. The machines in Robots are a symphony of inventive design, and the characters represent the sort of inspired creativity that is that hallmark of great computer generated imagery.
The film opens with two robots, Mr. and Mrs. Copperbottom (Stanley Tucci and Diane Wiest) welcoming a new baby boy into their home. The robot baby, Rodney, arrives with some assembly required. The Copperbottoms are what in our world would be considered lower middle class. Mr. Copperbottom is a dishwasher, and by that I mean that his torso is a dishwashing machine, and therefore that is his job.
Rodney's favorite television show is hosted by Bigweld (Mel Brooks), who encourages an inventive spirit in all of his viewers. His motto is, “find a need, fill a need.” So Rodney begins tinkering with spare parts around the house and soon invents a dishwashing robot to help out his father. After graduating high school, Rodney decides to travel to Robot City and join Bigweld's company.
Upon his arrival in Robot City , Rodney meets up with Fender (Robin Williams), an unsuccessful con artist of a robot and soon they find themselves on a cross-town trip over, under and through Robot City . This trip is far and away the best scene in this film (which is saying quite a bit, considering the entire movie is pretty good). The system of transport involves rails, ramps, hammers, springs and all manner of other contraptions that all create a journey that is dizzying, breakneck and a bunch of other adjectives that also don't do this scene justice.
When Rodney finally arrives at Bigweld's headquarters, he discovers that everything isn't quite how he thought it would be. The doors to the company aren't open, as claimed on the TV show, and in fact, Bigweld himself seems to be missing.
Inside the Bigweld boardroom, we learn that Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), Bigweld's number two robot, has ousted Bigweld and taken over the company. His master plan, hatched along with his mother, Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent), is to force every robot to pay for upgrades. Those who can't afford it, robots like Rodney and his family and friends, will be recycled as scrap.
Naturally, this leads to a confrontation between Rodney and his gang, and Ratchet and his mother. Caught in the middle is Cappy ( Halle Berry ), who is an executive in Bigweld's company and disagrees with Ratchet's plan. She sympathizes with Rodney's plight, and soon finds herself lending help to his cause.
Movies like Robots are endlessly fun to watch. There is so much going on in this film, and so many visual jokes, that it will take several viewings to really appreciate it all. I don't know that these characters have quite the charisma or longevity of other CGI masterpieces (such as Woody and Buzz from Toy Story), but they are engaging and appealing.
::Video
CGI films benefit from direct digital-to-digital transfers, which generally result in nearly flawless images. Robots is no exception. This is a very colorful film, full of detail and motion and I saw very few problems throughout this transfer. There were a couple of instances of odd digital shimmering or grain, but I really couldn't be sure if those were related to the DVD, or present in the original renders. I didn't spot any edge enhancement or compression flaws.
::Audio
Even better than the video is the audio presentation. Given it isn't possible to capture any sounds from the set -- because there is no set -- CGI films rely very heavily on sound design. Not only are the sound effects impressive, but the musical score, with enhancements from the Blue Man Group, really boost this audio presentation.
::Special Features
Robots includes a relatively modest, but decent array of extras, and since the film itself is less than an hour and a half long, the supplements don't crowd this single disc presentation.
First up are two audio commentaries. The first is by director Chris Wedge and producer/production designer William Joyce. It's clear that these two guys have known each other for a long time and Robots is a project they've had on their back burner for much of their relationship. When they aren't busy distracting each other, they do offer up some decent insight into their intent for this film.
The second commentary involves many of the production crew from Blue Sky Studios (I believe I counted about 7 or 8 from the opening introductions). Because this track is of a more technical nature, it is a bit more dry, but as a fan of computer generated imagery, I found this to be the more interesting of the two commentaries.
Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty is a new 5 minute animated short created for this DVD and it features Aunt Fanny giving us a tour of Robot City's train station.
Next up are a series of 3 deleted scenes, each of which were obviously cut fairly early in the production as they consist mainly of storyboards and animatics.
"You Can Shine No Matter What You're Made Of" is an 18 minute featurette, which discusses what went into the character and production design of robots, including some of the real life objects that inspired the look of the characters.
I think my favorite extra is the Blue Man Group Music featurette, which showcases the work of the Blue Man Group and the special sound effects and music they created for the film. The focus in this featurette is the trip across Robot City.
The 2-minute Original Robots Test was a proof of concept film Blue Sky produced to make sure they could pull off this movie about animated robots.
The Meet The Bots section allows you to select from 11 of the main characters in Robots for a more in-depth look. In addition to a profile of the character and a 3D view, each also features an interview with the personalities behind the voices.
Finally, there are several interactive games, an Xbox racing game and a "sneak peek" at Ice Age 2.
::Bottom Line
As a family movie, Robots obviously lacks any sense of real peril and it's apparent from the start how everything will turn out, but that's not the point. It's how well this story is told and the sheer visual splendor that makes Robots shine. Blue Sky Studios, the company behind both Robots and Ice Age are very quickly giving Pixar a run for their CGI money, and this is definitely a DVD worth picking up.
| Movie |  |
4 / 5 |
| Video | |
4.5 / 5 |
| Audio | |
4.5 / 5 |
| Extras | |
4 / 5 |
| Family Friendly | |
4.5 / 5 |
| Robots contains very little that is objectionable. Even the "final battle" is fairly tame. There are some jokes intended for the adults, but even then the humor is fairly safe. | ||
| Overall | |
4 / 5 |
- Robert Wurth, ©2005
::Technical Specs
Studio:
Fox Home Entertainment
Year of Theatrical Release:
2005
Disc Format:
1 single-sided, Dual Layer
Image Format:
Anamorphic Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Region Encoding:
1 (North America)
Sound Format:
DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 (pro logic)
Running Time:
89 minutes
Director:
Chris Wedge
Stars:
Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Robin Williams, Amanda Bynes, Drew Carey, Jim Broadbent
MPAA Rating:
PG
Disc Supplements:
- Commentary track with director Chris Wedge and Producer William Joyce
- Commentary track with Blue Sky Studio
- Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty animated short
- Deleted Scenes
- Meet the Bots profiles
- Blue Man Group musical featurette
- You Can Shine No Matter What You're Made Of featurette
- Original Robots test
- Interactive Games
