Today’s quick review: Meet the Robinsons. Lewis is an orphan boy whose dreams of being an inventor have kept him from finding a home. His life changes when he meets Wilbur Robinson, a boy from the future who has traveled back in time to prevent a villain in a bowler hat from changing the course of history. The two boys return to Wilbur’s time to track down the culprit, and in the process Lewis is introduced to Wilbur’s eccentric family.
Meet the Robinsons is a family science fiction adventure from Disney. Meet the Robinsons envisions a future packed with far-fetched inventions and colorful characters. The movie also deals with themes of family, belonging, and dealing with failure. However, its excessive creativity and loose plot keep its best ideas from shining through, and the movie ends up a notch or two below Disney’s usual quality.
Meet the Robinsons is notable for its freewheeling creativity. Wilbur’s future is a wonderland of instant buildings, bubble transportation, stretchy robots, and other technological marvels, and his own family is even more outlandish. These off-the-wall ideas give the movie its unique flavor and are a constant source of humor. They are the clay from which the movie’s slapstick, banter, and even a few of its tender moments are molded.
But Meet the Robinsons’ creativity is a double-edged sword. At some point its ideas cross over from eclectic to random. The movie lacks rules or boundaries, and its loose plot seems to be made up along the way. Meet the Robinsons does manage to plant a few early seeds that flower at the end of the movie, but key parts of the movie have arbitrary outcomes.
If you are looking for an inventive kids’ movie, Meet the Robinsons fits the bill. Whether its quirks are actual shortcomings or simply part of the kids’ genre is a question of taste, but skip it if you are looking for careful, logical writing. For a kids’ movie with a similar plot, check out Mr. Peabody and Sherman. For an equally free-spirited take on the sci-fi genre, check out Robots.
6.9 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.5 for good imagination and mixed execution.