Robots [DVD]

Description

Product Description Animated family comedy featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams and Halle Berry. Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor) is a small town robot who has a gift for inventing things and a hope of moving beyond his quaint surroundings. He works side by side in a restaurant with his dad who is a dishwasher - literally a dishwasher. You open his chest and load in the dishes. Rodney has dreams of something greater. Armed with his unique talent for inventing, Rodney embarks on a journey to Robot City to meet his idol, the majestic inventor Bigweld (Mel Brooks). An iconic figure in all of Robot City, Bigweld has spent a lifetime creating things to make the lives of robots better. Once in Robot City, Rodney finds that things are not quite as he expected, and his quest may be a lot harder than he imagined. As he tries to navigate his way around this new city, Rodney befriends the Rusties, a ragtag group of street-smart bots who know the ropes. One of the Rusties, Fender (Williams), immediately becomes Rodney's best friend and even lets his spunky kid sister Piper Pinwheeler (Amanda Bynes) tag along. They take him in, and for now, at least, Rodney has a home in Robot City. Rodney also meets Cappy (Berry), an executive at Bigweld Industries who takes an instant liking to Rodney and sees a lot of herself in him. Along their adventures, Rodney and his new friends encounter unsavoury characters who try to derail Rodney's plans to find Bigweld and save Robot City. .co.uk Review The delightful designs of William Joyce (writer/illustrator of such popular children's books as George Shrinks and Bently & Egg) make Robots a joy to behold. The round, bouncy, and ramshackle forms of hero Rodney Copperbottom and his computer-animated friends are part of an ornate and daffy Rube-Goldberg universe of elaborate contraptions and gleaming metallic surfaces. Rodney (voiced with a hint-of-Scottish lilt by Ewan McGregor) is a young inventor who sets off for Robot City to work for Big Weld (Mel Brooks), the supreme inventor of the mechanical world. But upon his arrival, Rodney discovers that Big Weld has disappeared, and the slick, shiny Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) is phasing out the spare parts that lumpen robots need to function and replacing them with "upgrades"--expensive and glistening new exoskeletons. Unfortunately, from this suitable beginning, the story degenerates into a series of action sequences that make very little sense, though some are kinetic and fun (though others are only there to serve the inevitable Robots video game). Most kids will enjoy the sheer visual pleasure of the movie, but compared to the narrative richness of Pixar movies like The Incredibles and Toy Story, that pleasure is pretty short-lived. Also featuring the voices of Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Coolidge, and many, many more. --Bret Fetzer, .com