'Meet The Robinsons' - Its Shiny
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

Disney has always been known for decent to great traditional cel shaded animation but not for its CG animation. True to a major theme in 'Meet The Robinsons', "Keep moving forward" that’s exactly what Disney has done and finally has succeeded. It’s no joke that Disney has a huge failure to success ratio and Disney does everything possible short of literally grabbing you and shaking you as they are yelling that failure is a good thing. That without failure you'll never find true success. But oh wait if your lucky enough to find a theater that is showing this film with the 'new' Disney Digital 3D format, it does grab and shake you and in a good way.

 

 

The story centers on twelve, almost thirteen year old orphaned Lewis, a bright and inventive lad. Lewis shares a room in an orphanage with a baseball loving kid affectionately called 'Goob'. Goob sits around in an almost moping state and talking to Lewis about his own problems as Lewis works on his ever failing inventions. We see Lewis starting off with the good ole toaster can save the world invention but alas his perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich making machine is near deadly in its failure as it bursts loose with PB&J all over a perspective adoptive father who just happens to be allergic to peanut butter. Upset by his now 124th failed adoption interview Lewis retreats to the roof where after a short talk with the house mom comes up with the brilliant idea of creating a machine that will see his memories and thus learn who is mother was and why she abounded him.

 

 

In his quest to build this wonder machine he meets Wilbur who claims to be from the future and is here to protect Lewis's first real invention from the evil Bowler Hat Guy. It turns out that Wilbur really is from the future and has stolen his fathers’ time machine to save the day, namely Wilbur's. As it turns out the Bowler Hat Guy has stolen the only other working time machine, thanks to Wilbur leaving the garage door unlocked, and is using it to steal the Memory Scanner from Lewis to claim it for his own.

 

 

So off to the future Lewis and Wilbur goes where as is par with the theme of the movie they run into failure after failure in the quest to find success in fixing a botched up timeline. As to the rest of the movie I leave it to you to discover. Happily there are many great things in this movie making that discovery a pleasure. This movie has many little twists, remember its aimed at kids, some are good, some leave you a little baffled, such as when you finally 'meet' the Robinsons. The Robinson's themselves are a huge and exceedingly whacked family and the scenes where you meet the family is probably the Achilles heel of this movie as it leaves even adults slightly lost. Happily in good style they do remedy that problem later in the movie, not once but twice.

 

 

The Bowler Hat Guy, who one assumes is the evil bad guy in this movie is, designed classic Disney style. Disney used all of its creative tools developed in its long arsenal to produce a great evil character. As with all evil characters he needs a bumbling side kick and for Bowler Hat Guy it’s his hat quite literally. His Hat whose name is Doris, is anything but the bumbler as its Doris that’s the real brain of this duo and Bowler Hat Guy is the bumbler. But the development and presentation of the two make them the perfect nemesis for this story and for its success. Disney has this thing for 'happily ever after' and even Wilbur gets his a shot at his thanks to Lewis.

 

 

Since this story deals with time travel they throw in all the goodies we are used to and expect, especially in a formulaic story such as this. Happily though it all works well for the story. The future is bright, fun, and happy even if its semi, retro and, well people float around in soap bubbles. But if you happen to see it in 3D you'll seriously enjoy those floating bubble people. Can the future be reshaped by adjusting the past, what happens if the past gets changed, do people cease to be? As more fitting ‘Star Trek’ then a Disney cartoon these quandaries pop up and get the fairy godmother treatment.

 

 

Disney lists this movie as a comedy and well it is. Yet sitting in a theater with nearly every seat filled with children I found it rare to hear the kids laughing during the movie. More often then not it was the adults, myself included, that found the real humor in its jokes and pranks which are beyond the grasp of young kids. In true Disney fashion, they love to make parody of older Disney movies as well as other classic movies that only one that grew up seeing all those older shows could truly appreciate. The look and style is centered to waken the eyes of children in its simplicity of modeling and shading but thrown in is the Flintstones-esque comedy to keep the adults entertained as well.

 

 

So how does this movie rate in technical terms? Well I'm happy I saw it in Disney's new Digital 3D format. That truly brought the full WOW factor out for this movie. The 3D itself was crisp and clear, with nothing distracting as so many of the older 3D movies were. Although I'll truly be happy when they develop 3D glasses that work nicely for those of us you already wear glasses in order to actually see the screen. Maybe one day a standardized format will be adopted and I can go to Wal-Mart’s and get a pair of prescription 3D glasses. But I digress here in my fantasy.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier the modeling and shading is very simple, large, and plain but brightly done. Its as if they had a child psychologist sit down with them to design the perfect 'Look' that will capture children’s attention and strangely enough if you watch the credits you'll see they pretty much did have a few 'Look' teams that work to that very end. Again like the Flintstone's the retro styling makes the jump to the future and back a magical journey that does not distract from the real story lines.

 

 

The animation, while still not up to par with Disney’s more powerful big brother Pixar is still above the average. The special effects are simple but very well done. The rainstorm and future gone bad scenes are major technical highlights of this movie at least in 3D. The lip-synching is diffidently better then most movies, while still not prefect it does nothing to distract you from the performance of the characters.

 

 

One of the technical weaknesses in the movie is the lighting. At times its a bit to harsh, there’s more then one object that has its specular and glossiness setting way out of whack. The use of lighting for mood just barely passes the test but passes it all does. Hopefully they will learn from some of the mistakes in this movie and use it to succeed even stronger in up coming features. After all this is what the movie wants you to learn, well at least one of the things it wants you to learn.

 

 

In the end this movie stands up with many of Disney’s great successes. It’s far from its best but equally as far, if not farther then its worst. Take the kids as a ruse to give your self almost two hours of simple pleasure and entertainment. Neither you nor the kids will walk away unhappy and maybe just maybe you'll gain enough encouragement to triumphantly overcome what ever obstacle is sitting in your life right now. I know it has for me.

Conclusion:
Its Shiny! While I'm not sure if the movie has a truly wonderful WOW factor unless you see it in 3D the story is classic Disney at its best. It has a few important things it wants to get across not only to kids but to adults as well. While marked as a comedy I found the adults finding the comedy much easier and more often then the theatre filled with kids. As such this movie makes for a great two hours of family time, with or without a family.

Ratings:

IMDB Film Rating: User Rating: 6.5/10 (219 votes)

- For a movie going experience I give it: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
This was a fun and enjoyable movie that's above the CG average in movie going experiences. Its not Pixar and you know it while watching it but Disney Animation is learning fast.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 4 out of 5 stars.
This was the first 3D experience I truly enjoyed! There have been many others but this was almost pure bliss. If possible go the extra distance to see it in Digital 3D.

Credits:

Cast:
Mildred - Angela Bassett
Lewis - Daniel Hansen
Lewis - Jordan Fry
Michael "Goob" Yagoobian - Matthew Josten
Mr. Harrington - John H. H. Ford
Mrs. Harrington/Receptionist - Dara McGarry
Mr. Willerstein - Tom Kenny
Lucille Krunklehorn - Laurie Metcalf
Coach/Uncle Gaston - Don Hall
Stanley - Paul Butcher
Lizzy - Tracey Miller-Zarneke
Wilbur - Wesley Singerman
Young Franny - Jessie Flower
Bowler Hat Guy/Tallulah/Grandpa Bud - Stephen J. Anderson
Doris/CEO/Spike/Dmitri/Laszlo/Fritz/Petuniav - Ethan Sandler
Carl - Harland Williams
Aunt Billie - Kelly Hoover
Uncle Art - Adam West
Franny - Nicole Sullivan
Frankie - Aurian Redson
T-Rex - Joseph Mateo
Cornelius - Tom Selleck
Reporter - Joe Whyte

Director - Stephen J. Anderson

Writing credits

Based on the book 'A Day With Wilbur Robinson' by William Joyce

Adaptation - Jon Bernstein
Screenplay - Jon Bernstein

Executive Producer - John Lasseter, Clark Spencer
Producer - Dorothy McKim
Stereoscopic Associate Producer - Monica Lago-Kaytis

VFX
Disney Feature Animation
Digital Domain

MPAA: Rated G.
Runtime: 102 min