Robots

Meet Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor), a young robot who's dream is to make 
his way as an inventor in the big city, Robot City to be exact, and work for 
the greatest robot in the world, Bigweld (Brooks) the president and owner of
Bigweld Industries. Copperbottom starts from humble beginnings, the son of a 
dishwasher, literally, in a sleepy little suburb called Rivet Town. 

Rodney finds his way to Robot City, but something's just not right -- the
doors to Bigweld Industries are closed! Bigweld himself is missing! And in 
his place is a sleek, cold corporate executive Ratchet (Kinear) whose dream 
(at the behest of his mommy) is to rid the town of all the old broken down
bots who can't afford to buy his "upgrades". To fight this bourgeois evil he 
teams up with a group of broken down weirdo's led by the fabulous falling-apart
Fender (Williams) and of course there has to be a girl Ð a top end corporate
model named Cappy (Berry).

From the team that brought us Ice Age, It's safe to say that Blue Sky Studios
is hands down, the only competition that Pixar (The Incredibles, Toy Story)
has in the market right now. This movie was absolutely stunning. The animation
was crisp and smooth and the acting was dead on. Blue Sky doesn't necessarily
deal with the complex "intellectual" plots and stories like Pixar. It's
definitely a kid's movie with some things thrown in for adults. Both Ice Age 
and Robots they've taken very simple themes: good versus evil, coming of age,
triumph over adversity and come up direct clean storylines that allow you to 
enjoy the action (which is non-stop) and the jokes (yeah, you know you love
fart jokes, it's ok you don't have to admit it) while still putting you on a
bit of an emotional rollercoaster.  There is certain innocence in the way the
movie is made, no pretense, no formula just a simple funny story with great
animation. 

I was lucky enough to see this film on the IMAX screen, I haven't seen a whole 
lot of movies in that format since I tend to get ill, however I would 
definitely recommend forking over the extra dollars to see Robots on the huge 
screen, The Cross Town Express trip alone, where Rodney and Fender are whipped 
all across robot city in a large gerbil ball, is worth the price of admission. 

This one is a must see, 5 stars, some blue hearts and 7 yellow moons. You can 
probably add some green clovers in there as well if you'd like, after all it's
almost St. Patrick's Day. But absolutely no yellow diamonds, sorry.


Starring: Halle Berry, Ewan McGregor, Greg Kinear, Robin Williams, Drew Carey 
and Mel Brooks
Directed By: Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha
Rated: PG
Robots opens Friday March 11th

Dave can be reached at dkerr@detroitbuzz.com