'The Wild Robot' Review: The Best Animated Movie of 2024

Lupita Nyong'o voices a tenderhearted robot who learns to embrace motherhood

There are certain movies you watch and immediately know you’ll remember everything about seeing it for the first time. It’s a feeling that was impossible to shake while watching DreamWorks’ latest animated offering The Wild Robot. DreamWorks Animation has been killing it of late, taking big swings in both animation styles and storytelling that have yielded some instant classics.

Their 2022 feature Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was my favorite animated movie that year. The Wild Robot could go down as one of the best movies of 2024, period, thanks to its painterly animation and a deep, complex story of motherhood and self-sacrifice that will leave you ugly crying (or prove you have a heart of stone).

Robotic helper Rozzum 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) finds herself stranded on an island after the cargo carrier containing her and several other Rozzum units is destroyed. The robot, hellbent on performing her essential function which is caring for others, tries to connect with the wild animals of the forest only to face resistance. When an accident sees Roz left to care for a young gosling, the robot must decide how to carry out her new primary directive of helping the infant survive.

What immediately stands out about The Wild Robot is the animation style that beautifully illustrates the ecosystem at play. Bright sun and green, crisp leaves can just as easily make way for dark, crashing waves against forbidding rocks. This isn’t the usual place you’d see a robot, and it’s that dichotomy that inspired author Peter Brown’s book which director Chris Sanders adapted. It isn’t enough for Rozzum to be out of her element amongst strange creatures. It’s that said creatures are animals, not the humans she’s used to. So everything she encounters has an additional barrier of not communicating with the robot at all, left to be temporarily blinded by Rozzum’s camera flash and covered in the stickers she leaves behind.

This strange, frightening wilderness leaves Rozzum questioning how to get off the island; a homing beacon becomes a recurrent element she turns on and off, with a gulf continuously growing between her own personal desires and the needs for which she was created. A chance encounter with a bear bring a lone egg into her life, with Rozzum deciding this might be her new primary function: to help the little gosling eat, survive, and eventually fly.

The voice work here is some of the best exhibited on-film, rivaling some of Pixar’s choices. It’s less stunt casting and more compelling the actor to act out their character despite just lending their voice to it. Nyong’o as Rozzum aka Roz is, initially, another soothing Siri-esque voice we’ve heard countless times. What Nyong’o does so skillfully throughout the story is use her voice to show Roz’s growing love for the little gosling, known as Brightbill, in her care.

She sets the tone for the rest of the voice cast. Pedro Pascal, as a rascally fox named Fink who, originally, wants to eat Brightbill, complements Nyong’o’s rationality with irreverence. Fink, who is just as lonely and isolated as Roz, albeit with some more unspoken drama left under the surface, has a level of humanity and humor that makes Roz’s cold exterior disappear.

And where Nyong’o has to maintain a balance between warmth and robotic, Pascal is all tenderness, even when he’s trying to make a meal out of the baby. Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry and Mark Hamill round things out with vocal performances that never feel showy — you won’t be playing “who IS that voice” with this one — but always situate character first.

Sanders is no stranger to strong character development and big emotions, having given audiences the beloved Lilo & Stitch. Like that film, he focuses on characters adrift in trying to discover who they are, and through the creation of a makeshift family learn they’re stronger together.

Once Roz discovers Brightbill, Sanders’ penchant for hilariously off-base jokes creates some solid levity throughout, whether that’s Catherine O’Hara’s possum character, Pinktail, celebrating/mourning the death of a child only to discover he’s not quite dead yet or Roz telling Brightbill she feels “crushing obligation” at having to raise him. The script never treats the children in the audience as if they’re dumb nor does it shy away from the fact that this movie takes place in a wilderness where life and death can come as swiftly as an eagle ripping a crab out of Roz’s hands.

Roz and Brightbill’s relationship develops not unlike Lilo and Stitch or Hiccup and Toothless. The little gosling follows Roz around only for her to believe he’s “stalking” her. She’s cold and resistant to him wanting to cuddle with her. As Roz reiterates, her only reason for helping him is to give herself a primary function. He’s in need of assistance. It’s how that slowly transitions into her feeling the need to help him that changes everything. The training montage to help Brightbill fly is the first of many beautifully animated/edited/scored scenes that will just leave you sobbing.

The emotional beauty of The Wild Robot is its strongest quality and it’s what elevates the movie from “great animated film” into “classic” territory. Lupita Nyong’o and the voice cast are all superlative but, more importantly, they make everything feel lived in. The beats are heavy and packed with love and emotion in a way that you’ll connect with. Pack the tissues, for sure.

Grade: A+

The Wild Robot is in theaters Friday.