Image: “The Wild Robot” (2024) Movie Poster via IMDb
Let me start off by saying from the bottom of my heart every single person on this planet needs to GO SEE THIS DAMN MOVIE! I went into this movie blind. I didn’t see any trailers for it; I didn’t see any reviews; I really didn’t see any advertising for this movie — so my expectations weren’t high, and I wasn’t expecting anything crazy. But holy, this movie was one of the best movies I have seen in my life. I was so stunned walking out of the theater, my friend and I looked at each other at the end of the movie, and we were just speechless.
The movie is simple: a robot named Roz is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must adapt to her surroundings, build relationships with the local wildlife, try to fit in with the wildlife and surprisingly become the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose. A simple plot, nothing too complicated, though of course her becoming an adoptive mother can seem out of place. But nope: it is the best part of the movie.
This movie has some of the best animation I have seen in an animated movie in my 20 years of living. The water animation might be the best water animation I have ever seen. Everything seems realistic, and one of the best parts is that if something happened to the robot or any animals, it didn’t just go away. You saw it throughout the entire movie, and it didn’t magically disappear like in other animation movies. There isn’t a single ugly shot or a part where the animation looks off; it is truly a work of art. The best thing about this movie is the emotion shown throughout. I will come out and say it: I cried twice. Yes, two separate times this movie made me cry. I can’t remember the last movie to make me cry twice. This movie pulls at your heart strings throughout the entire movie. The relationship between Roz and some of the animals have some of the best heartbreaks and makes you feel so sad. But then the emotion five minutes later can make you feel so happy. This movie puts your emotions on a rollercoaster of sadness, joy, hopelessness, hope, excitement, anxiety and thrill. If I had to be picky and try to find something wrong with this movie, I would say there is a time skip of a couple of months. Now the only complaint with it is that they skipped a part where it could have been important to see that timeframe for some of the emotional parts of the movie. But it really is not a big deal, and I am just being very very very picky.
Please do not waste any time, and go see this movie. “The Wild Robot” had absolutely no business being one of the best movies to drop this year as well as being one of the most emotional movies of the year. This movie is easily a 10/10 with some amazing animation, heartbreaking emotion and, well, it’s just a spectacular movie!
Jackson Evans is a third-year Communications major with a minor in Journalism.